Mozambique’s second-busiest port halted operations before severe tropical storm Freddy made landfall Friday, bringing heavy downpours and winds as strong as 120 kilometers per hour.
(Bloomberg) — Mozambique’s second-busiest port halted operations before severe tropical storm Freddy made landfall Friday, bringing heavy downpours and winds as strong as 120 kilometers per hour.
The port of Beira, located in the center of the country, paused operations from early Thursday, operator Cornelder de Moçambique said in a note to clients posted on its Facebook page. Neighboring Zimbabwe relies on Beira for fuel imports.
Freddy struck Mozambique’s coast Friday afternoon south of Vilankulo, a tourist hotspot about 150 miles south of Beira, Meteo France said. The weather forecaster had previously warned the storm could intensify to the level of a tropical cyclone before its arrival.
Landfall was close to Sasol Ltd.’s Pande and Temane natural gas operations, from where the fuel is piped to South Africa. The company is taking all necessary precautions to ensure the safety of its people and operations, it said in a response to emailed questions.
Mozambique canceled some flights, while Zimbabwe closed schools on Friday in southern and eastern parts of the country that are expected to be most affected. Flooding in central and southern Mozambique could impact as many as 1.75 million people, according to the government.
“Months’ worth of rainfall may fall in the space of a few days, causing widespread flooding in an area which already has saturated soils and high river-basin levels from unusually heavy seasonal rains,” the World Meteorological Organization said in a statement. “The compound impact could be significant.”
Freddy developed off the coast of northwest Australia before traversing the southern Indian Ocean and making landfall on the east coast of Madagascar, where it killed at least seven people. The last time a cyclone made such a journey was 2000 — also a La Nina year — when Eline and Hudah caused disastrous flooding in Mozambique, according to the WMO.
‘Catastrophic’ Flooding
The storm’s impact on South Africa will be limited to the extreme northeastern corner of the country, including part of the Kruger National Park, according to a statement Friday from the nation’s weather service. It had earlier this week warned of potential “catastrophic” flooding in the northeastern part of the country, also already hit by heavy rains this month.
Forecast trajectories for Freddy have shifted further north over the past two days, meaning Zimbabwe may face a greater threat.
While it probably won’t impact areas South Africa relies on for coal mining and power generation, previous storms have affected the transmission lines that it uses to import electricity from the Cahora Bassa hydropower dam in Mozambique, South African Weather Service forecaster Kevin Rae said in reply to emailed questions earlier this week.
Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., the state power utility, has already imposed record power cuts as it can’t keep pace with demand.
“Hopefully this will not become an issue for Eskom,” Rae said.
–With assistance from Paul Burkhardt and Godfrey Marawanyika.
(Updates with landfall from the first paragraph)
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