As an expat who has been knowing Madagascar for 28 years and living there permanently for the las 7 years, all I can tell you is that the poverty has been spreading and growing at a frightening pace these last few years on the Island.
These lootings are carried-out by desperate people who have nothing anymore to lose but their lives.
Probably more than 80 people died in Antananarivo, Mahajanga, Toamasina, Toliara, Sambava, Antsirabe, Fianarantsoa.
We fear that more will die as the lootings continue in Antananarivo where the wealthy suburb of Ivandry is now targetted as well as Tanjombato.
There is no justification for looting. But the Malagasy people is fed-up with greedy political leaders. An unfortunately this trend is not likely to change with the new wolves climbing the political ladder...

I have been travelling to Madagascar for 15 years. In that time, the improvements have been astonishing. I had to visit businesses 15 years ago. None of them was investing. Most, the opposite. All spoke of the corruption and greed which, although their labour costs were infinitessimaly small, added so much to the costs that they could not properly function. Typically, a manufacture of Cashmere told me he had to put the export portion of a container going to the port in one end, the remainder filled with layers which would be ripped off by police, army and port officials. The canals in Tana were filled to overflowing with refuse and sewage. The markets had duck bords above duckboards to make it possible to wade through lakes of excrement and rubbish. The roads had pot holes big enough to hide a 2-chevaux in. The agricultural system was collapsing, as the government acted as sole market, at a price below that of production; beautiful age-old rice terracing was falling into dereliction. Every ruined terrace spewed silt onto paddy below. Worse still, the lack of proper markets meant that peasants turned to slash and burn to survive. It was difficult to fly by helicopter because of the number of small bush fires up every valley in the fast diminishing virgin rain forest. The burnt forest then turned to badlands,and added to the silt spewed onot the remaining working paddy fields. The prize asset of Madagascar, its bio-diversity, was being destroyed. The corrupt dictatorship was taking a bigger and bigger slice of a smaller and smaller cake until there was no cake left.
Thank goodness for Ravalomanana. Tana is barely recognisable, with clean canals and working roads. The country side is starting to bloom again because there is a market for products. There is a long way still to go. The French had run the place badly, and since they left in the fifties, everything had got worse. No-one can reverse such a decline in a few years. But the best chance is democracy which Ravalomanana is devoted to; and getting rid of corruption, a battle he has fought from well before being President. For the people of Madagascar, I hope he serves long enough to make his plans work.