Maputo — Tropical cyclone Chido is heading for the coast of the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado and could make landfall on Sunday.

The cyclone has passed north of Madagascar, and has now entered the Mozambique Channel.

The National Disaster Risk Management Institute (INGD) warned on Friday that Chido could affect 2.5 million people.

The INGD chairperson, Luisa Meque, told reporters "We have teams prepared who will travel to Nampula and Cabo Delgado provinces. Indeed, some are already in Cabo Delgado where they are making people aware of the danger'.

She urged local communities "to remain attentive to the information given by the relevant authorities'. They should leave high risk areas and search out safer zones. While the storm rages, nobody should attempt to cross the swollen rivers.

Speaking to the independent television station STV, Agostinho Vilanculos, of the National Water Resource Management Directorate, warned that Chido could be as devastating as cyclones Idai and Kenneth, which both hit northern Mozambique in 2019.

The heavy rains brought by the cyclone, he said, endanger people living in the basins of all the main Nampula and Cabo Delgado rivers.

"We are paying special attention to the districts of Memba, Mecufi, Chiure, Quissanga, Pemba city, Muidumbe and Macomia', said Vilanculos. "We believe these are the districts at very high risk'.

"We are urging people living near the river banks to remove their property from low-lying areas to higher ground', he added.

Chido smashed into the island of Mayotte on Saturday morning, with wind speeds of up to 215 kilometres an hour, and then headed almost directly west. On its current course, it will hit the Cabo Delgado coast, just south of Pemba, at around 08.00 on Sunday.

But by then Chido's wind speed will have fallen to 155 kilometres an hour. As it heads deeper inland, the storm will decline in intensity, with the wind speed forecast to fall to 85 kilometres an hour by Sunday evening.