Death toll from Mozambique, Zimbabwe floods exceeds 300

783

BEIRA, Mozambique, March 20, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The death toll from a cyclone
that smashed into Mozambique and Zimbabwe rose to more than 300 on Tuesday as
rescuers raced against the clock to help survivors and the UN led the charge
to provide aid.

“We already have more than 200 dead, and nearly 350,000 people are at
risk,” Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi announced, while the government in
Zimbabwe said around 100 people had died but the toll could be triple that
figure.

The UN, meanwhile, said that one of the worst storms to hit southern
Africa in decades had also unleashed a humanitarian crisis in Malawi,
affecting nearly a million people and forcing more than 80,000 from their
homes.

Four days after Tropical Cyclone Idai made landfall, emergency teams in
central Mozambique fanned out in boats and helicopters, seeking to pluck
survivors from roofs and treetops in an inland sea of floodwater, sometimes
in the dead of night.

Air force personnel from Mozambique and South Africa were drafted in to
fly rescue missions, while an NGO called Rescue South Africa said it had
picked up 34 people since Friday night, using three helicopters.

“It is the only way to access the people that are stranded,” Rescue SA’s
Abrie Senekal told AFP, saying the NGO was trying to hire more helicopters.

– ‘Like a tsunami’ –

Ian Scher, who heads Rescue SA, said the helicopter teams were having to
make difficult decisions.

“Sometimes we can only save two out of five, sometimes we drop food and go
to someone else who’s in bigger danger,” he said.

“We just save what we can save and the others will perish.”

In Nhamatanda, some 60 kilometres (40 miles) northwest of Beira, 27-year-
old Jose Batio and his wife and children survived by climbing onto a roof.

But a lot of their neighbours “were swept by the water,” he said. “Water
came like a tsunami and destroyed most things. We were prisoners on the
roof,” he told AFP after they were rescued by boat.

The city of Beira, Mozambique’s second largest city and a major port, was
immediately cut off after the storm. According to the Red Cross, the cyclone
damaged or destroyed 90 percent of the city of half a million people.

President Nyusi, speaking on Tuesday after attending a cabinet meeting in
the ravaged city, said the confirmed death toll stood at 202 and nearly
350,000 were “at risk.”

The government declared a national emergency and ordered three days of
national mourning, he said.

“We are in an extremely difficult situation,” Nyusi said, warning of high
tides and waves of around eight metres (26 feet) in the coming days.

On Monday, Nyusi had said he feared more than 1,000 had died and more than
100,000 people were in danger. – Zimbabwe toll –

The storm also lashed eastern Zimbabwe, leaving around 100 dead, a toll
that could be as much as 300, local government minister July Moyo said after
a cabinet briefing.

“I understand there are bodies which are floating, some have floated all
the way to Mozambique,” he said.

“The total number, we were told they could be 100, some are saying there
could be 300. But we cannot confirm this situation,” he said.

At least 217 others are missing and 44 stranded, officials said.

Worst hit was Chimanimani in Manicaland, an eastern province which borders
Mozambique.

Families started burying their dead in damp graves on Monday, as injured
survivors filled up the hospitals, an AFP correspondent said.

Military helicopters were airlifting people to Mutare, the largest city
near Chimanimani.

The storm swept away homes and bridges, devastating huge areas in what
Defence Minister Perrance Shiri said “resembles the aftermath of a full-scale
war”.

Some roads were swallowed by massive sinkholes, while bridges were ripped
to pieces by flash floods.

– Aid ramps up –

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said it was mobilising aid for some
600,000 people, saying the world did not yet appreciate the scale of the
“massive disaster.”

So far, it has dispatched more than five tonnes of emergency provisions to
the affected areas.

“WFP aims to support 500,000 to 600,000 people in the coming weeks,”
spokesman Herve Verhoosel told reporters in Geneva.

“I don’t think that the world (has) realised yet the scale of the
problem,” he said.

In Malawi, 920,000 people have been affected by the cyclone and 82,000
people have been displaced, the UN said.

“OCHA (the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) has
deployed resources to support assessments and information management, and
UNICEF is deploying additional supplies to affected areas including tents,
water and sanitation supplies and learning materials to affected children,”
it said.