A cyclone in the southwest Indian Ocean was heading on Tuesday towards the holiday paradise of Mauritius and the French island of La Reunion, government officials and weather experts said.
The storm on Monday amplified to the status of intense tropical cyclone — broadly equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane in the Atlantic, they said.
However, it was downgraded on Tuesday to a tropical cyclone, roughly equivalent to a Category 2 event, packing heavy rain and peak gusts of 150-180 kilometers (93-111 miles) per hour, said Francois Jobard, a forecaster with the French weather service Meteo France.
Berguitta was likely to strike Mauritius on Wednesday and pass on Thursday by La Reunion to the southeast, when it would be probably downgraded to the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane, he said.
Mauritius' minister for social security and the environent, Etienne Sinatambou, said the cyclone was likely to strike at around late morning on Wednesday.
Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam international airport has been ordered to close ahead of landfall, Airports of Mauritius, which operates the facility, said.
On La Reunion, an overseas department of France, the local prefecture called on the public to ensure they had supplies of tinned food, bottled water, batteries and medication, and said airline flight schedules would be disrupted by the storm.
Powerful circular tropical storms are known in the Atlantic as hurricanes, in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific as cyclones and in the Northwest Pacific as typhoons.
burs-ndy/bw/ri/boc
Madagascar cyclone death toll hits 51, 22 missing
The cyclone that slammed into Madagascar earlier this month has claimed 51 lives, with 54,000 people displaced by flooding, heavy rain and high winds, authorities said.
Tropical cyclone Ava made landfall on January 5, lashing the eastern part of the African island for 24 hours, with many rivers overflowing, roads cut off and bridges submerged.
Twenty-two people are still missing while 16 … read more
