Thousands displaced after deadly cyclone hits Madagascar
The cyclone, which has claimed at least 6 lives and displaced around 48,000 people, is expected to remain dangerous.
"Localised or generalised floods are still feared," the island's meteorological office said.
At least six people have died and nearly 48,000 displaced in Madagascar after Cyclone Batsirai struck the Indian ocean island overnight.
The director of risk management in the national disaster agency, Paolo Emilio Raholinarivo, listed the numbers of dead and their location on Sunday but gave no further details.
An official updated list of numbers of people impacted by the storm which brought heavy rains and winds, showed a total of 47,888 people had been displaced.
Cyclone Batsirai weakened overnight but not before wreaking havoc in the poor Indian Ocean island nation which is still reeling from a deadly tropical storm earlier this year.
Batsirai made landfall in Mananjary on Saturday night as an "intense tropical cyclone", packing winds of 165 kilometres (102 miles) per hour, Faly Aritiana Fabien of the country's disaster management agency said.
The rain is expected to cause flooding across parts of the country, Madagascar's meteorological office said.
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Just an hour and a half after the cyclone had first hit land, nearly 27,000 people had been counted as displaced from their homes.
4 million lives at risk
The national meteorological office had warned of "significant and widespread damage", but said on Sunday that "Batsirai has weakened".
The cyclone's average wind speed had almost halved to 80 kilometres (50 miles) per hour, while the strongest gusts had fallen back to 110 km/h from the 235 km/h recorded when it made landfall, Meteo Madagascar said.
The storm poses a risk to at least 4.4 million people in one way or another, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.
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Community leader lamented the lack of clean water after the water utility company turned off supplies ahead of the cyclone.
Lack of drinking water
Community leader Thierry Louison Leaby lamented the lack of clean water after the water utility company turned off supplies ahead of the cyclone.
"People are cooking with dirty water," he said, amid fears of a diarrhoea outbreak.
Outside plastic dishes and buckets were placed in a line to catch rainwater dripping from the corrugated roofing sheets.
"We have been stocking up for a week, rice but also grains because with the electricity cuts we cannot keep meat or fish," said Odette Nirina, a 65-year-old hotelier in Vatomandry.
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