(Bloomberg) -- Tropical Cyclone Chido intensified as it barreled toward the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte on its way toward Mozambique’s northern coastline, the French meteorological service said, with wind gusts of up to 260 kilometers (160 miles) per hour.
The storm’s top sustained wind speeds of 185 kilometers per hour, estimated by Météo France on Friday, would make it equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane. The storm is expected to regain strength on Saturday after passing Mayotte, before striking Mozambique the following day.
Chido threatens Mozambique’s northern ports of Pemba and Nacala when it makes landfall, potentially lashing the coast with winds of up to 220 kilometers an hour, the southern African nation’s meteorological institute said in a statement Friday.
It could dump as much as 250 millimeters (10 inches) of rain over a period of 24 hours, the institute said. Nacala is Mozambique’s biggest export hub for coal, the nation’s top foreign exchange earner.
The storm will strike as Mozambique struggles to contain the worst political unrest in decades after disputed elections in October.
The demonstrations were affecting humanitarian operations in the Cabo Delgado and Nampula provinces that Chido will likely impact, according to the European Commission’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre. Cabo Delgado is also home to an Islamic State-linked insurgency and a liquefied natural gas facility that Eni SpA operates.
The storm will be the first to make landfall in Mozambique in the current season that starts in November and runs until the end of April. Météo France’s specialized regional center in October forecast there’ll be more cyclones than average in the southwest Indian Ocean this season, with between four and seven expected.
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