Mister Lemarisc is around 75 years old – he isn’t sure of the exact year of his birth. But of one thing he is sure: before Cyclone Gamane struck a year ago, he had never seen a cyclone cause so much damage to the commune of Ambilobe. Mister Lemarisc is a representative of the older community in his fokontany. He recounts his memories of the night that turned their lives upside down.
The whole community traumatised…
I live with my wife, “my old lady”, we are the parents of eight children and the proud grandparents of twelve grandchildren! Fortunately, not all of them live near us. That evening, no one saw the disaster coming. The water in the river rose so quickly, it was dark and hard to see what was happening.
In our house, the water started to rise at 7 o’clock in the evening, but there were no evacuation or rescue operations going on around us. I realised we were going to be flooded out in next to no time because the winds were so strong and the rainfall was so intense! In my role as a representative of my community, I went out to warn the neighbours of the coming danger and then evacuated unaided with my wife, some of our children and their families.
We were quite a way from the nearest emergency accommodation site, so we took refuge in a large concrete house that was still under construction. A real stroke of luck in the circumstances!
The house had no roof. It was just a large concrete slab but, along with all the neighbours who had managed to leave their homes, it gave us refuge from the rising floodwaters that were sweeping away everything in their path. All night long, we watched helplessly as everyone's homes and possessions were destroyed, at the mercy of the winds and the rain that didn't stop falling until around three in the morning. It was a very harrowing night for all of us, especially the young children and the elderly.
Crucial aid from humanitarian organisations in the first few days
By mid-afternoon the next day, the water level was still high, but we were finally able to come down from our refuge. We all rushed home to see the extent of the damage. In our house, the water had risen to almost two metres! Our clothes, our food, our administrative papers..., everything was soaked and covered in mud. But in our misfortune, we were lucky: in addition to the shock of the flood, some people’s homes had been looted by evil-minded people who had stolen what little they had left...
A few days after the disaster, I heard by word of mouth that humanitarian organisations were organising distributions. I met the HI teams who were distributing financial aid to disaster victims. That day, I received 240,000 ariary, which I used to buy food, as we had nothing left. I was able to buy several large bags of rice to keep us going for a while. I'm really grateful to HI; they were the first NGO on the scene, even before the local authorities!
Preparing for the future to prevent further disasters
Today, I'm still worried. Infrastructure such as roads and protective dykes have not been rebuilt yet, and the structure of our houses has been weakened. During the 2025 cyclone season, which is now almost over, our island was hit by several other cyclones, although they didn't cause as much damage as last year. But what will happen in the future? Each time everything is weakened still further. We are better prepared, but not necessarily better protected from future disasters... One of my former neighbours, whose home was completely demolished by the floods, lost everything, and still hasn’t been able to find a house.
We need to focus on sustainable protection solutions: reinforcing riverbanks and the town's infrastructure, building dykes, guaranteeing accessible accommodation sites for everyone... We can do more to protect the homeless and rebuild our town!
1Smallest administrative unit in Madagascar, subdivisions of the communes.
2 About 45€
