Intense rains and winds have started lashing parts of Mozambique as Tropical Cyclone Freddy bore down on the country for the second time in as many weeks.According to the Mozambique National Meteorology Institute (INAM), Freddy slowed its advance towards the southern African nation and was sixty kilometres off the coast on Saturday morning.The cyclone, one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the Southern hemisphere, previously made landfall on February 6.While satellite data shows it seems to have stalled offshore, residents have taken precautionary measures.After swirling for thirty-four days straight, the weather system is likely to have broken the record for the longest-lasting tropical cyclone.According to the World Meteorological Organization, the previous record was held by a 31-day hurricane in 1994.Newsmen reported that the power utility had switched off the electricity completely as a precaution, and that all flights were suspended.There were no immediate reports of casualties.The cyclone is slow-moving, which meteorological experts have said meant it would pick up more moisture off the sea, bringing heavy rainfall.More than one hundred and seventy-one thousand people were affected after the cyclone swept through southern Mozambique last month, bringing heavy rains and floods that damaged crops and destroyed houses, with United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs putting its death toll at twenty-seven so far, ten in Mozambique and seventeen in Madagascar.More than half a million people are at risk in Mozambique this time, particularly in Tete, Sofala, Nampula and Zambezia provinces.
