Cyclone leaves 154 dead

ANTALAHA, Madagascar -- A ferry missing after being caught in a cyclone off the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar sank with all but two of its 113 passengers and crew trapped inside, port authorities said Thursday.\nThe two survivors told officials at the northwestern port of Mahajanga, Madagascar the ship capsized Sunday night in violent seas. The survivors said they made it to shore the next day on a makeshift raft.\nThe drownings brought the death toll from Cyclone Gafilo to 154.\nMore than 80,000 people have been cut off from the outside world since the cyclone ripped through northern Madagascar Sunday, collapsing bridges, toppling trees and reducing tarred roads to gravel. Aid workers said they were not sure how much longer food and water supplies would hold out.\nGafilo swept out to sea but doubled back, hitting near the southwestern town of Morombe, Madagascar, Wednesday. By Thursday, it had weakened to a tropical storm as it moved toward the southeastern coast.\nThe Samson, a 150-foot ferry, left the Comoros islands capital of Moroni Saturday headed for Mahajanga. The 92 passengers and 21 crew had been feared dead since Monday, when the boat did not arrive. The dead included two French citizens, 31 Madagascans and 80 Comorans.\nAt least 43 others people were killed and thousands displaced by the cyclone, which ripped through towns and fields with heavy rain and winds of 145 mph.\nThe northern port of Antalaha, Madagascar, was the first town hit Sunday.\nMost of its wooden houses were flattened, the roofs were ripped off government buildings and trees snapped like matchsticks. Humanitarian workers estimate 80 percent of its 266,000 people were affected.\nAdults and children sifted through driftwood Thursday looking for material to rebuild homes. The sound of hammering echoed through the town.\nMost residents live off farming and fishing, but the storm sank their boats and washed away their crops.\n"I only have enough rice and fruit to feed my six children for the next four days," said Clertand Soa, starring out at the masts and riggings of sunken ships poking through the choppy surf. "After that, I don't know."\nThe town's water supply has also been cut off, and about 30 women stood waist deep in murky brown canal water washing clothes.\nThe World Food Program estimates the country will need about 5,000 tons of food.\n"The situation is very serious," said WFP Country Director Gianluca Ferrera. "The main rice-growing area which feeds the entire country has effectively been destroyed. There is no hope for a good harvest."\nThe vanilla crop, the country's main export, has also been wiped out.\nIt takes four years for a crop to mature, and farmers were just recovering from a cyclone that hit in 2000 when Gafilo struck.\n"Our region could produce up to 600 tons of vanilla a year, which we could sell for up to $182 a pound, but now it is all gone," Gov. Benaivo Andrianaly Narcisse said.\nMany vulnerable families will need help for months, if not years to come, said WFP spokesman Mike Huggins.\nThe French Red Cross has set up 20 large white tents on a soccer field which are accommodating 419 people. In the heat of the day, women and children peeled mangos and bananas and tended to small cooking fires.\nThe Red Cross, working with a French military contingent that arrived Tuesday from nearby Reunion Island, is providing blankets, plastic sheets and other material to rebuild homes.\nThe main concern are diseases such as cholera and diarrhea.\nCyclone Elita killed 29 people and left about 44,000 homeless, according to U.N. figures. In 1994, Cyclone Geralda affected 450,000 people.\nMadagascar is the world's fourth largest island and won its independence from France in 1960.