Chimulirenji made the remarks on Monday after touring households affected by the  strong winds at Thekerani Mission in Traditional Authority Nsabwe in Thyolo. He also inspected the extent of damage at Chikungwa Primary School and surrounding houses.

He observed that communities in rural areas do not have adequate capacity to recover from economic shocks in the aftermaths of natural disasters.

“Government is saddened by the disaster and I would like to reiterate its commitment in assisting those that have been affected by this disaster,” said Chimulirenji.

According to the October 2019 Disaster Assessment Report for Thyolo, in the last week of the previous month, the district experienced strong winds which damaged 1542 houses and five schools.

The damaged schools are: Lisule, Chikungwa, Nyodola, Nsanje and Muwanya. The effect of this is that students in the affected schools are currently learning under trees and as the rainy season commences it remains a fact that learning will be disturbed till a quick solution is found.

The report further discloses that 9 health workers in the district have been affected by the destruction too.

One of the damaged houses

Assessed immediate needs

• Plastic sheets

• Food items for the elderly and children

• Kitchen items

• Learning materials

• Big Tents for learning

• Iron Sheets,

• Planks, Nails, Roofing Nails, Cement and Lime.

In view of the above Government has intervened by supplying 600 bags of rice, 400 iron sheets and 850 metres of roofing plastic sheets to people affected by the storm as support continues to flow to the area.

According Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services, the period October to April is the main rainfall season over Malawi. October therefore marks the beginning of the official rainfall season monitoring in the country with the main rains arriving mainly from November in the south and progressively spreading northwards.