Mauritius, La Réunion, Madagascar - Tropical Cyclone BATSIRAI, update

Fri, 04 Feb 2022 07:08:28 +01:00

Tropical cyclone BATSIRAI passed north of La Réunion and is moving west-southwest towards the central-eastern coast of Madagascar. On 4 January at 0.00 UTC its centre was located about 500 km east of Vatomandry Town (Atsinanana Region, central-eastern Madagascar), with maximum sustained winds of 194 km/h.
In La Réunion, the Interdepartmental Crisis Management Operational Centre (COGIC) reports 13 injured and 219 evacuated people. In addition, 72,000 houses have been affected by power and water outages. In Mauritius, the number of fatalities stands at one person, while 139 people have been evacuated and thousands experienced power outages, as reported by media.
BATSIRAI is forecast to continue west-southwest over the Indian Ocean and it will make landfall over the central-eastern coast of Madagascar on the late morning of 5 February with maximum sustained winds up to 185 km/.
For the next 24 hours, heavy rain, strong winds and storm surge are forecast across the central, eastern and south-eastern regions of Madagascar, La Réunion (particularly the north-western part) and Mauritius. A yellow alert is in effect over the aforementioned Regions of Madagascar.
The Copernicus Emergency Mapping Service (EMS) was activated in rapid mapping mode on 2 February for La Réunion (EMSR563), to support the damage assessment.