14 March 2008
Maputo — Despite alarmist reports in some of the media that a massive cyclone is about to smash into the tourist resorts in the southern Mozambican province of Inhambane, cyclone Jokwe is in fact losing strength, and is still hundreds of kilometres from the Mozambican coast.
For the past couple of days, the cyclone has been going round in very slow circles in the southern Mozambique Channel, nearer to Madagascar than to Mozambique.
On Wednesday it was heading in a south-west direction, towards Mozambique, then it changed direction and headed north-east, back towards Madagascar. Now there has been a further change of direction and it is again headed west.
This is a far cry from the claims by a local Reuters correspondent that Jokwe "is expected to hit the southern tourist region of the country before gathering speed on its way to Madagascar". Elementary geography should have taught this reporter that a cyclone that moves from the Mozambique Channel to the Inhambane coast is not on its way to Madagascar.
Furthermore, a glance at the information and satellite photos of Jokwe published by the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre (run by the US navy and air force) shows that the storm is losing cohesion and diminishing in intensity.
It was moving on Friday at a speed of just one knot (less than two kilometres an hour). The winds generated by the cyclone had fallen to 74 kilometres an hour, with gusts of over 90 kilometres an hour. The maximum wave height in the cyclone's vicinity was around five metres - it had been over eight metres a few days ago.
Jokwe is steadily weakening, and by Saturday morning its windspeed is expected to drop to about 55 kilometres an hour.
The cyclone still poses a threat to shipping in the southern Mozambique Channel, but if it maintains its current trends, it cannot do any significant damage to the Mozambican coast.
This is the same cyclone that a week ago slammed into the northern Mozambican province of Nampula, after crossing the northern tip of Madagascar. Jokwe caused severe damage to coastal Nampula, and affected parts of Zambezia - but it then headed south down the Mozambique Channel.
Tourist operators in Inhambane are taking precautions, but at the moment it seems that the only significant threat the storm poses is to boats.
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