State disaster relief agency on Friday, February 11, 2022, said the death toll from Cyclone Batsirai in Madagascar had jumped to 111 from 92 reported earlier this week.
The cyclone hit the Indian Ocean Island on Feb. 5, slamming the south-eastern coastline before receding.
The disaster relief agency said that of the deaths, 87 had occurred in the Ikongo district in southeast Madagascar saying it was still collecting details about what had happened in Ikongo.
Batsirai was Madagascar’s second destructive storm in two weeks, after Cyclone Ana that killed 55 people and displaced 130,000 in a different area of the country, further north.
The island nation, with a population of nearly 30 million, was already struggling with food shortages in the south, a consequence of a severe and prolonged drought.
