Why Cyclone Freddy hit Blantyre hardest

When meteorological experts forecasted the potential hit by Tropical Storm Freddy, Nsanje District in the Shire Valley was marked as the eye of the cyclone.

But when Freddy eventually landed on Friday, Blantyre City emerged as the hardest hit in terms of the dead and displaced.

Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) puts the death toll in the Cyclone Freddy disaster at 225 with 707 people injured and 41 reportedly missing.

Incessant rains that characterised the cyclone -induced flooding and mudslides which have, so far, displaced over 19 676 households or approximately 88 312 people with 165 camps set to accommodate the displaced.

Blantyre is the hardest hit district with more than three quarters of the cases based on Tuesday’s statistics, which show that out of the 199 cases on that day, 156 were from Blantyre alone.

Why Blantyre City?

Town planning expert Mtafu Zeleza Manda said in an interview yesterday that much as the cyclone disaster was unprecedented, a practical disaster preparedness plan could have saved lives.

He faulted the delay in passing the Disaster Risk Management Bill which is expected to make available resources for such eventualities.

Manda further faulted the courts for granting an injunction to residents in Blantyre who were told to vacate disaster-prone areas such as Soche Quarry.

He said: “Blantyre settlements are very dense and most of the people built in wrong areas such as hills, mountains and river banks. That’s why it has recorded more deaths compared to the Lower Shire districts.

“The other reason could be that the rains are just too much, there is saturation of water up the hills and grinding of rocks. It’s the same thing that happened in Phalombe in 1991. The nation needs decisive measures, even by force to remove the people from disaster prone areas for their own safety.”

In his 2021 dissertation, then Malawi University of Science and Technology student Anthony Kazembe assessed landslide hazard vulnerability in areas around Soche Hill in Blantyre, one of the areas that have been hardest hit by the cyclone.

The study presented the vulnerability levels of buildings in the area which he said was an output that could be used by town planners and Blantyre City Council to take further action to limit expansion of the settlements to the hill slopes as well as using proper building standards.

Reads the study in part: “In addition, there is a need to encourage reforestation on the bare land along the hill slopes as this will help to reduce slope falling. There is a need for the council to set minimum building standards for those that are settling in these landslide prone areas. This will help them build high resistance houses to the effect that may be incurred by future landslide events.”

Civil Society Network on Climate Change national coordinator Julius Ng’oma attributed the high effect of Cyclone Freddy to environmental degradation in the city and called for preparedness programmes to any climate-related disasters.

He said: “People need to take action on information provided by moving out of danger in good time. Met has been monitoring this cyclone, evacuating people was one thing that could have happened before the cyclone had hit the country. Moving forward, we need to strengthen our infrastructure by making sure that when building roads, bridges or even houses, we consider such things.

“You cannot control cyclones because these are natural events, once they develop over the ocean because of the rising in temperature on the sea surface, then it will hit anywhere else. And depending on the strength, it can actually take out a strong building; we have seen what happened in America, strong structures were taken out.”

Besides killing people and damaging houses, Cyclone Freddy has caused damage to infrastructure such as roads and electricity poles rendering most districts in blackout for several days.

Meanwhile, Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) spokesperson Kitty Chingota says the utility has started working on its damaged infrastructure and restoring power in some of the cyclone affected areas starting with high voltage lines and essential service providers such as hospitals and the water boards before moving to localised faults.

She expressed optimism that the restoration works will be completed by next week Friday as the weather has improved to facilitate work.

Chingota said they have close to 200 poles that are down and it is still challenging to sink poles in wet grounds.

Tropical Storm Freddy has emerged as the worst in terms of fatalities after the January 2015 floods which affected 1.1 million people and killed 106 while 273  000 were displaced and 172 reported missing, according to a Post-Disaster Needs Assessment.

In January 2019, Tropical Cyclone Idai affected 975 000 with 60 killed, 672 injured, 86 976 displaced and 288 371 houses destroyed in 13 districts.

Malawi was also hit by Tropical Cyclone Ana in Janaury 2022 which affected 995 000, killing 46 and left 206 injured with 18 missing and 190 400 displaced.