Estacio Valoi
Mecufi -Pemba

At least 90,000 children impacted as Cyclone Chido hits hard in Mozambique
Thousands of homes immediately destroyed in Cabo Delgado, a province grappling with protracted conflict
Heavy winds and rainfall from Cyclone Chido have damaged or destroyed over 35,000 homes and affected more than 90,000 children across Cabo Delgado province, in northern Mozambique, after the storm made landfall on Sunday.
In addition to the large number of houses damaged, at least 186 classrooms were destroyed, and 20 health facilities were impacted.

Mecufi – In the southern globe, bells are ringing on almost all television channels, radio stations, social networks and by word of mouth about the passage of Cyclone Chido, which is coming at dizzying speed across the seas of Madagascar, rising with giant waves towards the city of Pemba in Cabo Delgado. The weather men and their graphs are forced to use compasses and satellites ahead of the cyclone. In the city of Pemba, some ditches are being cleaned to make way for the water that will, as always, destroy some houses if the cyclone is severe, and the trash that will be swallowed by the sea when its waves return to the sea. All the plastic possible. It is 6:48 am on Saturday, December 14, one day before the announced arrival of the cyclone. Sitting on Wimbe beach, the cold wind that is coming announces the cyclone. The fishermen are not going to sea, sitting down, tidying and mending their nets. And I ask them if they are not going to sea, to which they answer that the cyclone is coming. From midnight on the 14th to the 15th, the wind gusts whistled. On the Wimbe beach, on the surface of the sea, at the bottom of the ocean, waves roared in a thunderous storm, loaded with tons of trash, spewing it with full force onto the beach. The trees screamed in silence, looking down from their tops, whispering that they were tired of so much plastic, and out to sea they went with the wind whistling furiously in an orchestra with splashes of sand, all the sounds, solo, bass, double bass of almost all the instruments, the moon loaded with cumulus clouds was racing at cruising speed.

Death toll from “Chido” reaches 45
Mozambican authorities have reported that the death toll from Cyclone Chido in the provinces of Nampula, Niassa and Cabo Delgado has risen to 45 and that one person is missing.
The latest bulletin from the National Institute for Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (INGD) says that most of the deaths occurred in Mecufi, in Cabo Delgado province.

According to Fernando Neves Mecufi administrator cyclone Chido completely devastated the district, as well as government institutions and the houses of the populations, and its total destruction was complete. Of the 76,000 inhabitants that the district has, approximately 16,000 families were all affected by this cyclone.

“Accommodation centers that were also devastated by the cyclone were identified, and our population remained calm in these centers, but after the storm ended. The next day, each family had the opportunity to go to their home to see what they had lost and start looking for shelter to accommodate their family.”

Nowhere to hide escaping from the heave winds, bricks, zincs, falling walls, sticks, wood, towers!

An cyclone that has devastated their hometown of Mecufi . The distance between Pemba City and Mecúfi is 42 km by road.
While I’m in the center of Mecufi District I’m told by Nordino Abja Terapia Mecufi resident that on Sunday morning, the 15 th, from 5 am to almost 6 am, the situation worsened. We saw the entire district being destroyed, with metal sheets flying, houses falling down in any way. There were always accidents, but God almost saved us, got us out of the house before people could go to their jobs, to the fields. We had deaths, we buried people, I don’t know how to count, in the neirghborhood where I was, we buried people, in Sassalane.
Things are bad. We lost our home, not our food, and today we are just living like this says a group of young girls


Like the majority of inhabitants in Mecufi, they did not give up, life goes on in the middle of nowhere comparing with what was the district before being whipped out by Chido.

But this did not stop the smile of the people in their faces, children playing and fighting to a new beginning!

Over the past decade, climate shocks have intensified extreme weather in Eastern and Southern Africa. Community-leveling cyclones, like Chido, are becoming more commonplace. Cyclone Freddy, for example, ravaged Mozambique in 2023.

