Mozambique: Cyclone Idai’s toll rises above 300

AP | Mozambique on Wednesday began 3 days of national mourning for more than 200 victims of Cyclone Idai, one of the most destructive storms southern Africa has experienced in decades. In neighboring Zimbabwe, state media said the death toll was above 100.

The full extent of the devastation will only be known once floodwaters from torrential rains, expected to continue into Thursday, recede. It will be days before Mozambique’s inundated plains drain toward the Indian Ocean.

People have been reported clinging to rooftops and trees since the cyclone roared in over the weekend. The local humanitarian office said the town of Buzi, with some 200,000 people, was at risk of becoming at least partially submerged.

“Flood waters are predicted to rise significantly in the coming days and 350,000 people are at risk,” the humanitarian office said.

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa received a somber welcome in the hard-hit mountain community of Chimanimani near the border with Mozambique. Zimbabwean officials have said some 350 people may have died.

Mozambique’s president late Tuesday said more than 200 people were confirmed dead there. President Filipe Nyusi after flying over the affected region on Monday said he expected more than 1,000 deaths.

Aid workers were shocked as they arrived in the badly hit Mozambique port city of Beira, estimated to be 90 percent destroyed. Its 500,000 residents are scrambling for food, fuel and medicine. Some neighborhoods are below sea level.

Emergency aid has started trickling in to ease the crisis, while churches in Zimbabwe collected supplies to send on.

The chairman of the African Union Commission said the continental body would provide immediate support to the countries.

Tanzania’s military has airlifted 238 tons of food and medicine, and 3 Indian naval ships have been diverted to Beira to help with evacuations of stranded people and other efforts.