Floods linked to climate change hit a million people in Southern Africa

Here is your text converted to UK English, with spelling, usage and stylistic adjustments appropriate for broadsheet standards: Devastating floods that have swept across Southern Africa since December 2025, killing at least 280 people and affecting almost a million, were likely intensified by climate change, scientists say. The region’s rainy season hit hard in Mozambique, Eswatini, Madagascar, South Africa and Zimbabwe, displacing 150,000 people and destroying 105,000 hectares (nearly 260,000 acres) of farmland. Most recently, Cyclone Gezani struck Madagascar on February 10, leaving dozens dead.

The storm also caused deaths and damage in flood-battered Mozambique. A rapid study by World Weather Attribution (WWA), an international consortium of scientists and institutions that investigates the role of human-induced climate change in extreme weather events, found that a warming climate, combined with La Niña weather patterns, aggravated the extreme rainfall. “The most striking finding was that the rainfall accumulated over just 10 days exceeded the region’s average annual rainfall.

This was unprecedented,” said one of the study’s lead authors, Izidine Pinto, a climatologist and researcher in weather and climate models at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, speaking to Mongabay. He added that some weather stations recorded more than 200 millimetres (8 inches) of rain in just 24 hours. The authors noted that structural vulnerabilities in the affected areas made the climatic shocks even deadlier and more destructive.

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Mozambique, in particular, Pinto said, was not prepared for such heavy rainfall. WWA scientists analysed 10-day maximum rainfall accumulations during the rainy season in Mozambique, South Africa, Eswatini and Zimbabwe from December to early February. The current rainy season has been influenced by La Niña events, an unusual cooling of waters in the tropical Pacific Ocean that occurs every three to five years and influences weather patterns worldwide.

In Southern Africa, La Niña is linked to heavy precipitation. Under La Niña conditions, the likelihood of an extreme 10-day rainfall event increases fivefold.

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