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Madagascar: Cyclone Enawo Situation Report No. 4 (28 March 2017)

Countries
Madagascar
Sources
Govt. Madagascar
+ 2 more
Publication date

This report is issued by the Bureau National de Gestion des Risques et des Catastrophes (BNGRC) and the Humanitarian Country Team in Madagascar. It covers the period from 17 to 24 March. The next report will be issued early in April 2017, and will be published every two weeks thereafter.

Highlights

  • On 23 March 2017, humanitarian partners in Madagascar and the Government jointly launched a Flash Appeal for $20 million to provide support to 250,000 vulnerable people affected by Cyclone Enawo.

  • Response activities are rapidly being scaled up, with supplies, additional humanitarian organizations and staff arriving in the most-affected areas of northeastern Madagascar.

  • Since the start of the response, more than 76,400 people have received food assistance, and more than 55,700 people have received WASH support. In addition, 60,000 people have received support to access health care, while 8,050 households have benefited from emergency shelter assistance. The Education Cluster has also provided emergency educational needs of 45,100 children.

  • An elevated rate of malaria cases has been reported from Antalaha and Brickaville in comparison to March 2016; however, no increase in cases of diarrhoea has been reported to date.
    UNDAC mission has concluded on 24 March and the work has been handed over to national and incountry counterparts.

434,000 Affected people

5,300 Currently displaced

40,520 Houses destroyed

3,900 Classrooms damaged

>1,300 Polluted water points

105 Damaged health centres

Situation Overview

On 23 March 2017, the United Nations, together with other humanitarian partners and the Government of Madagascar launched the Madagascar Cyclone Enawo Flash Appeal, requesting just over US$ 20 million to assist 250,000 most vulnerable people affected by the cyclone for the next three months (until 23 June).

In addition to providing water, sanitation and hygiene assistance for 168,000 people, the US$20 million requested will fund food assistance for 170,000 people, and support more than 230,000 farmers in replanting crops and replacing livestock. The Appeal also calls for support to health care of 250,000 people at increased risk of waterrelated disease outbreaks in cyclone-affected areas and – cumulatively with interventions planned by the Malagasy Red Cross and other cluster partners as resourced through the IFRC’s Emergency Appeal – will support 20,000 families who lost their homes with emergency shelter and non-food items (NFIs). The planned assistance targets 45,000 of more than 120,000 children whose schooling has been disrupted with temporary learning spaces, and supports nearly 9,000 of the most vulnerable people with protection support. Funding is also included for priority Early Recovery activities, as well as Logistics and Telecommunications support for the response operation.

Among the damages caused by Cyclone Enawo, losses of food and cash crops are estimated at 65 per cent in Antalaha and Sambava districts (Sava Region), 85 per cent in Maroantsetra (Analanjirofo Region), and 58 per cent in the districts of Brickaville (Atsinanana Region), Farafangana and Vangaindrano (Atsimo Atsinanana Region).

Moreover, existing food stocks have been destroyed due to flooding and damage to houses, and affected households are unable to access sufficient food. Since the country is also at the peak of lean season, loss of food stocks due to the cyclone, combined with increased food prices, have made access to food more difficult. Food availability is also a challenge in some remote areas not reachable yet due to damage in roads. In affected districts households are estimated to have only two to three weeks of food stocks remaining.

High winds and flood waters severely affected social service infrastructures. More than 1,300 wells have been flooded and their water polluted, and more than 250 water infrastructures (wells, hand pumps, water systems) were damaged by the cyclone. In Antalaha city – where 80,000 people live – the main water distribution system was damaged, leaving the town without access to clean water.
To date, a total of 105 Basic Health Centres (BHC) damaged by the cyclone have been identified, including 17 that were totally destroyed, as well as eight regional or district hospitals. The increase in the number of damaged BHCs is due to heavy rain, which provoked a landslide in the municipality of Ambinanitelo (Maroantsetra district) at the beginning of the week and destroyed the basic health centre at Ambodiaramy. All BHC materials (refrigerators, drugs and other health items, and management tools) were damaged, as well as the house of the BHC Chief. The district management team is responding to the situation.

District health offices in Antalaha and Brickaville have reported a significant increase in malaria cases for the month of March as compared to 2016. However, there has been no significant increase in the number of diarrhoea cases or acute respiratory infections, which shows that preventative measures have been successful so far.

According to the Ministry of Education, some 3,900 classrooms have been damaged nationwide, of which 2,315 were completely destroyed and 1,588 were partially destroyed, leaving more than 120,000 children without school facilities.
In total, 62 per cent of all classrooms in the Sava Region have been destroyed. Children in this region represent onethird of the total number of children with their education interrupted as a result of Enawo’s impact.

In Sava Region, the UNDAC team has reported that clean up continues in Antalaha City, with fallen trees being removed from streets and buildings for the past week by 25 cooperating private sector companies. Meanwhile,
JIRAMA – the public sector body responsible for water and electricity in Antalaha – reports that many power lines are still down and will take another 15 days to be repaired. Over the past week, there has been a visible increase in the number of national and international staff from agencies working in Antalaha, as well as newly-arriving NGOs carrying out assessments and programme scoping missions.

IOM has conducted a rapid assessment along the road from Antalaha to Maromandia, which confirmed that nearly all of those displaced by the cyclone have left the temporary evacuation centres, with the majority having returned to their homes or staying with neighbours or members of their extended family. The level and type of damage differs from place to place, with clear differences between damages in villages versus urban centres. Similarly, the level of recovery to date varies. Access to villages in remote areas remains difficult. Markets in the area are functioning, but may not be easily accessible to those in remote areas. IOM recommends that an in-depth assessment is needed in order to target and respond to specific needs. Cash-based response should be considered, taking care to consider that payments will only be able to be made in cash (not electronically or by SMS) due to the lack of banking facilities in affected areas. Moreover, the most vulnerable may face challenges accessing markets.

In Maroantsetra district (Analanjirofo Region), the results of the multisector assessment undertaken by the NGO MEDAIR in 70 of the 74 fokontany in eight communes considered to have been affected by the cyclone indicate that these areas have suffered severe damage to housing, subsistence and cash crops and livestock. The assessment indicates that 2,255 houses were completely destroyed and 1,858 lost their roofs, while 56 per cent of fokontany were not accessible by normal means at the time of assessment. From four of the most-affected fokontany, which MEDAIR could not assess due to their total destruction by the flooding, the population reportedly spoke of rebuilding their entire village at some distance from the original location. Agricultural losses amounted to 81 per cent of subsistence crops and 67 per cent of cash crops, as well as 50 per cent of livestock.

The Logistics Cluster also reports that some key infrastructure in Maroantsetra, including the main road to the airport, is damaged and some surrounding villages remain flooded. River navigation is possible, however, and all villages can be reached via the rivers with the use of small boats. The BNGRC has identified 11 areas where access remains a challenge, of which eight (affecting approximately 1,000 households or 5,000 people) are located several kilometres from the coast. These will be surveyed using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the coming days.

Working in coordination with the BNGRC, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) conducted a Displacement Tracking exercise in Madagascar, issuing a report on 17 March 2017. To date, the BNGRC reported that 5,293 people remain displaced due to Cyclone Enawo – or less than 3 per cent of the total number of people displaced since the start of the disaster (246,842 people). Having identified 126 displacement sites in nine of the 15 regions affected by the cyclone, IOM has confirmed that the majority of such sites were located in public administration building such as fokontany offices (45) and in schools (40).

Having assessed 39 sites in the capital, Antananarivo, the DTM report confirms that 23 are now closed. Some 1,863 individuals remain in the 13 sites that are still open. Of those 13 sites, 12 lacked separate toilet facilities for males and females on site, but otherwise benefitted from a water supply, food distribution, education opportunities for school-aged children and on-site security.

On 22 March, the National Meteorological Services indicated there was little possibility of cyclonic activity affecting the country in the coming week.

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs: To learn more about OCHA's activities, please visit https://www.unocha.org/.