Cyclone Gezani slams into Toamasina with 250 kilometre per hour winds causing widespread destruction.

A powerful cyclone packing violent winds has killed at least nine people in Madagascar, toppling homes and triggering major flooding, the Indian Ocean island’s disaster authority said on Wednesday.

CBI News reports that Cyclone Gezani made landfall on Tuesday, striking the country’s second largest city, Toamasina, with winds reaching 250 kilometres per hour.

The National Office for Risk and Disaster Management said nine people died in the impact zone after houses collapsed. Nineteen others were injured, according to a statement.

Drone footage shared by the agency on social media showed extensive flooding in the east coast city of about 400,000 people, roughly 220 kilometres northeast of the capital Antananarivo. Roofs were torn from buildings and trees uprooted.

It is total chaos. Ninety percent of house roofs have been blown off, entirely or in part, said Rija Randrianarisoa, head of disaster management at the humanitarian group Action Against Hunger.

Although the cyclone weakened after making landfall, it continued to move across the island, raising the risk of further flooding.

Madagascar’s new leader, Colonel Michael Randrianirina, who seized power in October, was in the city on Wednesday to assess the damage.

The CMRS cyclone forecaster on France’s Reunion island said Toamasina had been directly hit by the most intense part of the storm.

It added that the landfall was likely among the most intense recorded in the region during the satellite era, comparable to Cyclone Geralda in February 1994, which left at least 200 people dead and affected around half a million others.