ANTANANARIVO (Reuters) - A cyclone that killed 25 people and made more than 100,000 homeless in Madagascar at the weekend swept back over the Indian Ocean island on Wednesday but there were no immediate reports of fresh damage, officials said.
Tropical storm Gafilo made landfall in the early hours near the estuary of Mangoky river in the southwest, taking a second hit at Madagascar after it had swept out to sea.
The storm was churning towards the southeast of the giant island off Africa's southeastern coast, National Meteorological Office Director Alain Razafimahozo told reporters.
Rescuers said they were still searching for 100 people who were feared dead after a ferry carrying them failed to arrive in Madagascar as scheduled on Monday, a day after Gafilo, the country's worst cyclone in 10 years, first hit the island.
No word had been heard from the ferry nicknamed Samson since Sunday evening.
Madagascar's state radio said 25 people were killed as a result of Gafilo's onslaught, many of them drowned after being swept away by sudden floods when rivers burst their banks.
Foreign Minister Marcel Ranjeva appealed on Monday for international aid for the vanilla-producing island.
Industry officials said that no firm estimates of damage to the vanilla sector had yet been made but initial indications were that the crop had not sustained critical levels of harm.
Vanilla growers are based mainly in the northeast, the area where Gafilo, carrying winds of up to 200 kph (124 mph), made landfall late on Sunday.
The storm rampaged across the northern part of the island, destroying buildings, uprooting trees and flooding towns before heading back out to sea.
Gafilo's winds had been expected to have abated to 150 kph on Wednesday but there was no immediate word on its strength, officials said.
Twenty-nine people were killed last month when cyclone Elita hit the island off southeast Africa.
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez addresses a session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen December 18, 2009. Chavez called the United States "the great polluter" on Friday and ...
