Car goes ‘off road’ in bad weather |17 December 2022

● Rainy season is here with a huge splash, causing flooding and landslides

The police reported that a car carrying three persons went off road in Grand Anse Mahé before 8pm yesterday, and at the time of going to press, search was still under way for a missing woman, while two persons had been rescued and transported to the Anse Boileau health centre for medical assistance.

This was the most serious incident reported as a result of heavy rain which has been affecting Seychelles since Thursday and which intensified throughout the day yesterday.

The heavy rain and strong winds during late afternoon also led to several incidents. At the time of going to press, over a dozen minor disasters and flooding incidents had been reported around Mahé, with more reports in the southern and western regions, compared to the northern and central regions. No incidents were reported in the inner islands.

In a telephone conversation with Seychelles NATION at around 7.30pm yesterday, Romano Songor, director general support services within the local government department, said that in the Anse Etoile district, there were reports of flooding in a house and several roads. However, most incidents were from Cascade, Pointe Larue, all the way, up to Baie Lazare, with reports varying from flooding, landslides, to fallen trees.

Mr Songor said the local government department had prepared for the rainy season, by activating its district competency and operational plan and had met with all the partners namely the Seychelles Infrastructure Authority (SIA), Land and Waste Management Agency (LWMA), and the environment department.

“We had conducted several site visits and cleared the drainage. This has been ongoing since the flash flooding in March and we were prepared. Unfortunately, some people had not prepared themselves where you find drainage systems that were still clogged with rubbish preventing water from flowing during heavy rain and so we are seeing flooding in several areas where it could have been prevented,” he said.

Mr Songor said to ensure the situation did not deteriorate during the night, as heavy rain persisted, the local government department had assessed the situation in some areas and had taken steps to prevent further incidents “by installing plastics on some terrace and doing some extra work to prevent landslide”.

The local government department will be conducting a major assessment today alongside SIA and its engineers to check all the critical sites. In the meantime, Mr Songor is advising the public to take necessary measures to prevent landslides near their homes, and to clean drainage to reduce flooding.

Meanwhile, the Seychelles Meteorological Authority (SMA) has said the heavy rainfall experienced on all three main islands ‒ Mahé, Praslin and La Digue ‒ is associated with the country’s rainy season.

An orange alert was issued by the SMA yesterday morning and according to its chief executive, Vincent Amelie, it was being maintained till 6am today, while the authority continues to monitor the weather condition.

Seychelles’ rainy season usually starts in September, but the SMA had announced that it could be late this year due to a change in weather pattern worldwide.

Although it was expected, it caught a lot of people off guard yesterday, as it rained incessantly, bringing with it strong winds.

Mr Amelie said the public should not be alarmed as this is Seychelles’ normal rainy season kicking off, albeit late.

“As predicted our rainy season has started late this year but it is finally here giving us those very cloudy conditions with a lot of rain, falling on the whole of Mahé, as well as Praslin and La Digue and some islands in the south. It is not abnormal as December and January are two months during our rainy season where we get the most rain. But maybe its intensity is a bit surprising as we have not seen that much rain in a while,” he explained.

The SMA which takes its rain measurement at 7am daily said it recorded over 100mm of rain from Thursday till Friday morning. According to Mr Amelie the average amount of rainfall for December is 280mm and based on the amount of rain observed on yesterday, it would seem the country has already reached its average rainfall for the month.

He said a lot of active clouds remain in the Indian Ocean region which is a clear indication that the condition will be maintained.

«We have to continue to monitor the situation because the clouds disperse in an area and form in another zone, bringing heavy rain. What I can guarantee is that all models are showing that this weather condition will persist for the next 12 to 24 hours, meaning we have to constantly monitor it,” said Mr Amelie.

Meanwhile, the Seychelles police also issued a warning after 8pm, advising motorists to refrain from using the road except in emergency instances.

At the time of going to press the weather forecast was moderate to heavy showers with thunderstorms expected over Mahé, inner and outer islands.

Patsy Canaya