2024-01-15 15:35:39
If the worst-case scenario was avoided in Reunion, the damage remains particularly significant. Tropical cyclone Belal ultimately did not reach the “intense” stage, but it directly hit the island with “major impacts”, describes Météo France. Gusts of more than 200 km/h on the mountain ranges, hundreds of mm of rain in twenty-four hours… This Monday, at the start of the afternoon, 136,000 homes were still without electricity.
At the same time, only one death was reported by the prefecture. But, for Stéphane Bommert, a 56-year-old emergency nurse who has lived in Sainte-Marie (north of Réunion) for around twenty years, “the most dangerous period and during which we risk seeing the most accidents will be this Tuesday. When people go out: a resident climbs onto his roof to repair it when it falls, another who wants to cut branches but hits one, etc. “.
VIDEO. The first images of cyclone Belal in Reunion
Mauritius was also very impacted and it will still be this Tuesday, but to a lesser extent than Reunion Island. Belal should now continue its trajectory towards the east of the French island. “It should make a small loop and park somewhat, several hundred kilometers from the island,” says Dorian Dziadula, forecaster for the Infoclimat site. According to Météo Franceit would then become a “post-tropical depression”.
Two “suspicious areas” monitored
However, many uncertainties still surround its path ahead. “Trajectory and intensity forecasts should be considered with the greatest caution,” warns Météo France. “There are still a lot of unknowns regarding the end of life of this low pressure system, whose trajectory can go in many directions,” Sébastien Langlade, head of Indian Ocean cyclone forecasts at Météo France, told us on Sunday.
Could Belal actually make a 360-degree turn and head back towards Reunion, like Cyclone Hyacinthe which repeatedly approached the “rock” in the middle of the ocean in 1980? “This U-turn scenario exists, but it is very much in the minority. The most likely being an attenuation over the days without really returning to the Mascarenes (the archipelago made up of Reunion, Mauritius and Rodrigues),” says Dorian Dziadula, from the Infoclimat website.
At the same time, Météo France is monitoring “two suspicious areas” in the southwest of the Indian Ocean that could give rise to the formation of “other moderate tropical storms for the next five days”.
#Cyclone #Belal #damage #trajectory.. #expect #coming #days