Factbox-Cyclone Freddy among Africa's deadliest storms

FILE PHOTO: Satellite imagery shows Tropical Cyclone Freddy approaching Madagascar in this undated satellite handout image obtained February 20, 2023. NASA Worldview/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

Cyclone Freddy has killed more than 500 people in southern Africa since it first made landfall last month, making it one of the deadliest storms to hit the continent in the last two decades.

Below are some of the deadliest storms recorded in Africa since 2000. For storms before that, reliable data is scarce. In many cases, the real toll could be higher because of deaths that went uncounted or were not officially recorded.

CYCLONE IDAI, 2019

FILE PHOTO: Fallen branches are seen on a street as Storm Freddy is due to hit Mozambique again, in Quelimane, Zambezia, Mozambique, March 11, 2023, in this screengrab obtained from a video. UNICEF Mozambique/2023/Alfredo Zuniga/Handout via REUTERS

Cyclone Idai killed more than 1,000 people when it battered Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi in 2019, according to tallies from government and United Nations officials. Mozambique, where two major rivers burst their banks, submerging villages, was worst hit.

CYCLONE FREDDY, 2023

Cyclone Freddy has killed more than 500 people, mostly in Malawi but also in Mozambique and Madagascar. Lasting more than a month, the storm may be the longest ever recorded and has broken records for accumulated energy and cycles of intensification.

Young boys carry plastic as they look for items to salvage from the Nasolo river in Ndirande township in Blantyre, Malawi March 15, 2023. REUTERS/Eldson Chagara

STORM DINEO, 2017

Tropical storm Dineo hit Mozambique in 2017 and also caused heavy flooding in Zimbabwe that killed about 250 people and left almost 2,000 homeless, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

CYCLONE GALIFO, 2004

Cyclone Galifo killed about 170 people when it struck Madagascar in 2004, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. At the time it was the most intense cyclone to have hit the country in a decade, and caused more than 200,000 people to lose their homes.

SOMALIA CYCLONE, 2013

A tropical cyclone that hit Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region in 2013 killed about 160 people, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. It caused massive destruction that displaced hundreds of nomads and wiped out about 1 million livestock.

CYCLONES ELINE AND GLORIA, 2000

Cyclones Eline and Gloria hit Madagascar one after the other in 2000, killing about 130 people, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. About 114 villages and communities were cut off by flooding and only reachable by helicopter.

(Reporting by Nellie Peyton; Editing by Bhargav Acharya, Janet Lawrence and Bernadette Baum)