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Mozambique's National Institute of Meteorology (Inam) announced this Friday that it is monitoring tropical storm Dikeledi, which is expected to enter the Mozambique Channel on Sunday, the second in less than a month.
Initially classified as a tropical depression, formed northeast of the island of Madagascar, Inam explained in a statement that it has evolved into a tropical storm, and is expected to worsen in the coming hours and become a cyclone on Saturday.
"Current projections indicate that this meteorological system has the potential to reach tropical cyclone status on January 11, 2025, close to the east coast of Madagascar. Dikeledi could enter the Mozambique Channel on January 12," the statement reads.
However, Inam adds that the "phenomenon does not yet pose a danger to the coast or the mainland" of Mozambique, although it stresses that it is monitoring the situation.
The previous one, 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.
Data recently updated by 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.
This cyclone also 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, facing cyclical floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs from October to April.
