<
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/jul/31/loss-and-damage-how-the-first-climate-survivors-to-receive-funds-are-rebuilding-their-lives-in-malawi>
"Gladys Austin is a climate disaster survivor. In March last year the
39-year-old mother of six stood in ankle-deep water in the room where her
family slept. She tried to stay calm as the relentless rain battered her home.
Her village’s trading centre, school and the chief’s home, built on an elevated
foundation, were all submerged.
The storm destroyed the sandbars on Malawi’s Ruo River, where she and her
husband, Biyeni Twaya, 46, fished as well as the field they had farmed since
their youth, growing maize, beans and tomatoes. Goats, ducks and chickens, bags
of grain that Austin had saved over the years, were all washed away. She
estimates they were worth 6m kwacha (£2,700).
Cyclone Freddy, which ripped across the southern Indian Ocean, devastating
swathes of Mozambique, Madagascar and Malawi, was the longest-recorded tropical
storm in history. By the time it subsided, after five weeks of destruction,
Austin and the 5,000 residents of Makwalo village in Malawi’s southern Nsanje
District had lost everything.
The village chief, Meke Nkhandwe, ordered everyone to evacuate. Some people
went to stay with relatives or friends. But Austin and her family squatted in
their flooded home for nearly three months until, in June, they reluctantly
moved to Namiyala refugee camp, about six miles away. She says their attachment
to their land and concern over conditions at the camp kept them from leaving.
“I was in shock, but eventually had to keep moving for us to survive,” she
says.
According to the government’s post-disaster needs assessment, Cyclone Freddy
killed 679 people and displaced 659,000 in southern Malawi. The storm caused
$506.7m (£394m) worth of physical damage and economic losses, with $45.5m in
Nsanje alone. Before 2015, the country had never seen a cyclone.
Nsanje District was one of the worst-hit areas, with 20,000 households
destroyed. For more than two months, Austin and her family stayed at Namiyala –
a primary school converted into a makeshift camp – with more than 10,000 other
people displaced from the greater Makhanga area."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
