More than 1,000 feared dead after cyclone slams into Mozambique
JOHANNESBURG • More than 1,000 people were feared dead in Mozambique four days after a cyclone slammed into the country, submerging entire villages and leaving bodies floating in the floodwaters, the nation’s president said.
“It is a real disaster of great proportions,” President Filipe Nyusi said.
Cyclone Idai could prove to be the deadliest storm in generations to hit the impoverished southeast African country of 30 million people. It struck Beira, an Indian Ocean port city of a half-million people, late Thursday and then moved inland to Zimbabwe and Malawi with strong winds and heavy rain. But it took days for the scope of the disaster to come into focus in Mozambique, which has a poor communication and transportation network and a corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy.
Speaking on state Radio Mozambique, Nyusi said that while the official death toll stood at 84, “It appears that we can register more than 1,000 deaths.”
U.N. agencies and the Red Cross helped rush emergency food and medicine by helicopter to the stricken countries.
Mount Chiluvo in central Mozambique was badly hit by flooding. One resident said he heard a loud noise, like an explosion, and suddenly saw a river of mud rolling toward his home.
“I was indoors with my children, but when we looked we saw mud coming down the road and we fled,” Francisco Carlitos told Lusa, the Portuguese News Agency. The family lost their home and possessions but safely reached higher ground.
Displaced people carry their personal effects last week after Tropical Cyclone Idai in Beira, Mozambique.
The poor neighbourhood of Nhamudima, which has been razed by the passing cyclone, in the coastal city of Beira, Mozambique, Sunday March 17, 2019. Families are returning to the vulnerable Nhamudima shanty town following cyclone high winds and rain. More than 1,000 people are feared dead in Mozambique four days after a cyclone slammed into the southern African country. (Josh Estey/CARE via AP)
A woman makes her way to a school building being used as an emergency shelter for some 300 local people who are unable to return to their homes following cyclone force winds and heavy rain in the coastal city of Beira, Mozambique, Sunday March 17, 2019. More than 1,000 people are feared dead in Mozambique four days after a cyclone slammed into the southern African country destroying vulnerable residential areas. (Josh Estey/CARE via AP)
Schoolchildren are stranded across a collapsed bridge in Chimanimani, southeast of Harare, Zimbabwe, Monday, March 18, 2019. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)
People trudge through a muddied path to safer ground in Chimanimani, about 600 kilometers southeast of Harare, Zimbabwe, Monday, March 18, 2019. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)
Luckymore Rusero and his family walk past a collapsing road in Chimanimani, southeast of Harare, Zimbabwe, Monday, March 18, 2019. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)
People wait in a queue to receive food supplies from soldiers in Chimanimani, about 600 kilometers southeast of Harare, Zimbabwe, Monday, March 18, 2019. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)