Cyclone Chido destroyed more than 330 schools and three district education departments in Cabo Delgado province, in northern Mozambique, in December, according to official figures released this Friday.
According to the spokesperson for the Cabo Delgado provincial education department, Rachide Sualé, the situation affects more than 108,000 students and 1,280 teachers in eight districts, with Mecúfi, Chiúre, Namuno and Metuge being the worst affected, just a few weeks before the start of the 2025 school year.
"We have three district education, youth and technology departments that have been severely affected, with 337 schools and a total of 1,419 classrooms destroyed (...), 166 administrative blocks in these schools and 512 toilets destroyed, and there was also damage to teachers' homes, 92 of which were damaged," the spokesperson added in a report.
The intense tropical cyclone Chido, a level 3 (on a scale of 1 to 5), hit the coastal area of northern Mozambique in the early hours of December 14, later weakening to a severe tropical storm. In the following days, it continued to batter the provinces in northern Mozambique with "very heavy rains of over 250 mm [millimeters]/24 hours, accompanied by thunderstorms and winds with very strong gusts", according to previous information from the National Emergency Operations Center.
Recently updated data from the Mozambican authorities indicate that at least 120 people died and another 868 were injured during the passage of Cyclone Chido in northern and central Mozambique.
According to Rachide Sualé, the provincial education department of Cabo Delgado is working with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to mitigate the impact of the cyclone in the eight districts and try to improve student performance in the next school year.
"We have Unicef, which has already delivered sheets, nails and beams to three districts, namely Mecúfi, Chiúre and Metuge, to quickly build classrooms, which we call temporary spaces to accommodate children who will be in school after January 31st," said Sualé, adding that construction of the spaces will begin next week.
"We have 72 temporary spaces in Chiúre, 17 temporary spaces will be built in Metuge and 16 temporary spaces in Mecúfi," he concluded.
The cyclone affected 687,630 people, corresponding to 138,037 families, in the provinces of Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Nampula, in the north, and Tete and Sofala, in the center, according to the latest report from the National Institute for Disaster Risk Management and Reduction of Mozambique.
Of the total confirmed deaths, 110 were recorded in Cabo Delgado, seven in Nampula and three in Niassa.
Mozambique is considered one of the countries most severely affected by climate change in the world, cyclically facing floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs from October to April.
