It's an ominous name and has killed "as least 169 people" in Mozambique and Zimbabwe but hasn't gotten much publicity.

Weird Nari like track - started just offshore - made landfall - looped and went back out to sea - strengthened - then headed back towards the coast

https://www.smh.com.au/world/africa/hundreds-dead-in-zimbabwe-mozambique-as-cyclone-ida...

Meanwhile another cyclone (Trevor) threatening the north of australia - will cross land into water in the next couple of days where it's expected to re-intensify before striking land again

It now appears Idai was a catastrophic event. Reports suggesting "over 1000" people could be dead. Seems most of the damage was done by the rain due to its slow moving nature - massive flooding and destruction across three countries, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi.

It's second coming on land happened on Friday - only just starting to crack international news reports today - four days later.

Looks like a bad mix of mountains and a lot of flat ground - at least in Taiwan the water runs back into the sea pretty quickly

According to wikipedia, it reached a peak intensity of out to sea around 200kph sustained winds with gusts up to 280k which would make it a Cat 3 - 4? Also it's a big-arsed storm in sheer size terms. Down to 160 k when it made landfall but still caused a storm surge of 4.4m. Dropped up to 600mm of rain in the worst hit area.

"Idai was the tenth named storm and record-breaking seventh intense tropical cyclone of the 2018–19 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Idai

Catastrophic indeed. I don't often read of deadly storms in Africa but after looking at the Idai Wikipedia page that appears to be due to media bias in reporting rather than such storms actually being rare.

It sounds like the situation is getting worse. I sort of thought the worst had passed:

"Sacha Myers of Save the Children, in Mozambique, told NPR, "The situation at the moment, in Mozambique ... is getting worse by the hour. The area is already inundated by floods that hit the area last month. The cyclone has come through. It has destroyed everything in its path." Myers says 100,000 people in Mozambique alone need urgent rescue."

100,000 in need of urgent rescue? That's an incredible number. https://www.npr.org/2019/03/19/704914634/cyclone-idai-leaves-millions-in-need-of-rescue...

There are reports of dams bursting or of floodgates having to be opened, which is only going to exacerbate flooding. Also coz of the flat land, it takes longer for the water to recede i guess.

It's hard to find on the internet any of the things we take for granted like sat and radar images for Mozambique - so i guess they had very little warning

Other reports say the flood level in some parts was higher than electricity poles!

I don't know the details of the governments in the countries affected but i suspect they're plagued by corruption - that's not going to help when it comes to rescuing the 100 000 people in need of urgent help.

Flood map from Idai

Incredible. It seems the world is finally starting to take notice.

Not surprisingly, the incredible death toll from Idai is being put down to “great corrosion of the state’s ability due to corruption”.

The report says the local government failed to warn people in rural areas - while "The internal capacity to respond immediately to disasters like this is zero, and the result is that with every new day, the list of the dead is updated.”

I travelled through Africa 30 years ago - at the time i thought i was travelling through the last days of the undeveloped world and by now those countries would all be modern societies. In fact nothing has changed - maybe it's even worse

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/28/mozambique-mayor-cyclone-deaths-negligenc...