(Bloomberg) -- Cyclone Idai, described by the United Nations as one of the worst weather disasters ever to hit the southern hemisphere, may exacerbate food shortages in Zimbabwe, hamper Mozambique’s fight against Islamist insurgents and affect the results of elections in South Africa, Stratfor Inc. said.
The cyclone hit the Mozambican coast earlier this month, devastating the port city of Beira and killing at least 700 people in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. It also knocked out power lines that carry electricity from Mozambique to South Africa, worsening outages.
“Idai damaged a great deal of critical economic infrastructure,” the risk-analysis firm said in a research note. “As these three countries look to pick up the pieces in the aftermath, Idai has exposed deep deficiencies within their economic and political systems that may prove hard to rectify.”
The cyclone may have destroyed more than $1 billion of infrastructure, according to the UN. There’s been severe damage to the port in Beira, a vital conduit for Zimbabwe’s gasoline and wheat imports. Already facing a poor harvest, the impact could accelerate the onset of a food crisis in that country, Stratfor said.
In Mozambique, the government may be forced to deploy its military to the affected area, lessening its focus on an insurgency in the gas-rich north of the country, while the downing of the power lines contributed to South Africa’s worst-ever scheduled power cuts less than two months before a national election, Stratfor said.
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