Tanzania escapes cyclone Kenneth as storm kills one in Mozambique

Dar es Salaam. Business activities yesterday resumed to normal in Mtwara and Lindi regions after a reported threat of a tropical cyclone Kenneth which weather forecasters had spotted advancing towards the coast of southern Tanzania and northern Mozambique.

The Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA) had said the cyclone would hit Mtwara and Lindi regions. This left residents bracing for the worst, with some vacating their homes for safer locations.

Businesses in the regions came to a standstill, however they were yesterday directed to return after reports made it that Kenneth had changed direction.

A petty trader in Mtwara, Ms Aneth Kisika, told The Citizen yesterday that business had normalised and all the panic had gone.

“I’m back doing my business as usual. But there was great fear here,” she told The Citizen.

She said residents who sought refuge to relatives and friends and reserved areas have also returned to their homes.

“The area is now calm. No wind. No rain. Residents have resumed their activities as if nothing happened,” said Mr Arnold Kinaia, another resident of Mtwara.

He said citizens who had gathered at reserve areas in the region carried with them food and water for the children as nothing had been prepared.

But other residents, such as fishmonger Kinaia said fishing activities were yet to resume as they were awaiting for reports from TMA.

Meanwhile, reports from Maputo say that a powerful cyclone smashed into northern Mozambique, leaving one person dead on Friday, barely a month after a super-storm slammed into the country’s centre, devastating the area and leaving hundreds dead.

Category three Cyclone Kenneth, packing winds of 160 kilometres an hour, struck the north coast’s Cabo Delgado province late Thursday after swiping the Comoros islands.

The United Nations warned of flash flooding and landslides as Mozambique’s emergency situation institute (INGC) reported one person was killed by a falling coconut tree at Pemba in Cabo Delgado.

On the tourist island of Ibo, 90 per cent of homes for the 6,000 population had been flattened, said a spokesman for the institute, Antonio Beleza.

“I don’t expect to find my hotel undamaged,” said Swiss hotel owner Lucie Amr, who took refuge in the Ibo fort alongside many local residents.

Authorities in Tanzania ordered schools and businesses shut in some southern regions on Thursday and urged people to brace for extreme winds and rain.

Mtwara Regional Commissioner Gelasius Byakanwa, had ordered schools closed in the region and asked “students to stay home and employees not to go to their offices”.