At least 10 people have been killed and nearly 48,000 forced from their homes after Cyclone Batsirai struck Madagascar over the weekendnight, according to the island country’s office of disaster and risk management. Al Jazeera the cyclone made landfall in Mananjary, with winds of 165 kilometres per hour, uprooting trees, destroying buildings, and forcing residents to weigh down flimsy corrugated iron roofs along its path. A local resident told the AFP news agency that the town had been “completely destroyed” while a technical adviser to the vice president of Madagascar’s Senate said that it was as if the area had been “bombed”.
