PORT LOUIS, March 1 (Reuters) - Madagascar has received just $1 million from its $242 million appeal to help cope with multiple natural disasters this year, the United Nations said on Thursday. Madagascar made the appeal last month, saying cyclone damage and rising flood waters have covered houses, cut off main roads and destroyed an estimated 200,000 tonnes of rice on the world's fourth-largest island. In the south, drought has affected 582,000 people, including 7,000 children under the age of five with acute malnutrition, the U.N. children's agency UNICEF said. In a statement, UNICEF's country representative Bruno Maes called Madagascar a "classic silent emergency". "Fortunately, we have not had large-scale epidemics or hundreds of lives lost, but the children who are affected by these disasters live under extremely vulnerable conditions," said Maes. Officials are concerned that yet another cyclone, Humbo, may hit the Indian Ocean island, located off the south-east coast of Africa. "After over forty days of extensive relief operations in locations around the country, the nation's response services are over-stretched at best," UNICEF said. Floods this cyclone season have killed seven people and displaced more than 32,000, most in the capital Antananarivo. Experts estimate that flooding might cause the loss of 10 percent of this year's agricultural production.
