A. Situation analysis
Description of the disaster
On 3 March 2015 at 23:00hrs, hail storms accompanied by strong winds and heavy rainfall affected the villages of Mwakata, Magung’unhwa and Nhumbi in Msalala district, Shinyanga region. The villages are located 20 kilometres from Kahama town, 75 kilometres from Shinyanga town and 1,000 kilometres North-West of Dar es Salaam. The hailstorms affected 5,000 people whereby a total of 3,500 persons were displaced after the storms destroyed 634 houses. It was reported that 47 persons lost their lives and 112 persons were injured out of which the majority were children.
On 4 March 2015, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) released CHF 115,885 from the Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to support the Tanzania Red Cross Society (TRCS) provide immediate relief assistance to 500 families (3,000 people) affected by the storms, for a period of three months.
Following the launch of the DREF operation, the procurement of some NFIs was carried out via the IFRC East Africa and Indian Ocean Islands (EAIOI) regional representation based in Nairobi, specifically: mosquito nets, blankets and water buckets; however due to unavoidable issues related to the customs clearance, their distribution was slightly delayed. On 14 May 2015, the timeframe of the DREF operation was extended by six weeks (until 30 June 2015), and then on 17 June 2015, by additional two weeks (until 14 July 2015). All activities planned within the DREF operation were completed by the end of June 2015.
This DREF has been replenished by DG ECHO. The major donors and partners of the DREF include the Red Cross Societies and governments of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the USA, as well as DG ECHO, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) the Medtronic and Zurich and other corporate and private donors. The IFRC, on Emergency Plan of Action Preliminary Final Report Tanzania: Hailstorm (Shinyanga) behalf of the Tanzania Red Cross Society would like to extend its thanks to all partners for their generous contributions.
Please note that this Preliminary Report is issued in advance of the Final Report, which is expected to be issued by the end of November 2015