Cyclone Freddy affects 500,000 people in Malawi: UN

The death toll in Malawi from Cyclone Freddy has risen to 360, with more than half a million affected by the storm in the country – Copyright AFP Amos Gumulira

Jack McBRAMS

Cyclone Freddy, which dissipated this week after a record-breaking rampage, has caused more than 460 deaths in southern Africa and affected more than half a million people in Malawi, the UN said Friday.

The storm dumped six months’ worth of rainfall in six days in southern Malawi, leaving a trail of destruction and severely damaged infrastructure as well as flooding farmland.

“Over 500,000 people have been affected,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report, adding that more than 183,100 people had been displaced.

Some 360 people have died in Malawi, according to the latest toll relea