Loss and damage: how the first climate survivors to receive funds are rebuilding their lives in Malawi

Cyclone Freddy left a trail of destruction when it hit southern Africa last year. Sixteen months later, 2,695 households have received relocation payments with no strings attached

Gladys Austin is a climate disaster survivor. In March last year the 39-year-old mother of six stood in ankle-deep water in the room where her family slept. She tried to stay calm as the relentless rain battered her home. Her village’s trading centre, school and the chief’s home, built on an elevated foundation, were all submerged.

The storm destroyed the sandbars on Malawi’s Ruo River, where she and her husband, Biyeni Twaya, 46, fished as well as the field they had farmed since their youth, growing maize, beans and tomatoes. Goats, ducks and chickens, bags of grain that Austin had saved over the years, were all washed away. She estimates they were worth 6m kwacha (£2,700). Continue reading...


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