Over 2.6M People Affected By Africa Cyclone

By Staff, Agencies

Cyclone winds and floods that swept across southeastern Africa affected more than 2.6 million people and could rank as one of the worst weather-related disasters recorded in the southern hemisphere, UN officials said Tuesday.

Rescue crews are still struggling to reach victims five days after Cyclone Idai raced in at speeds of up to 170 kph from the Indian Ocean into Mozambique, then its inland neighbors Zimbabwe and Malawi.

Aid groups said many survivors were trapped in remote areas, surrounded by wrecked roads, flattened buildings and submerged villages. The Red Cross said at least 400,000 people had been made homeless in central Mozambique alone.

“This is the worst humanitarian crisis in Mozambique’s history,” said Jamie LeSueur, who is leading rescue efforts in Beira for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

The organization said large areas to the west of the port city of Beira were severely flooded, and in places close to the Buzi and Pungwe rivers floodwaters were meters deep, completely submerging homes, telephone poles and trees.

“The scale of suffering and loss is still not clear, and we expect that the number of people affected as well as the number of people who have lost their lives may rise,” LeSueur said.

The official death count in Mozambique climbed to 200 Tuesday. But President Filipe Nyusi said Monday he had flown over some of the worst-hit zones, seen bodies floating in rivers and now estimated more than 1,000 people may have died.

The cyclone hit land near Beira Thursday and moved inland throughout the weekend, leaving heavy rains in its trail Tuesday. Studies of satellite images suggested 1.7 million people were in the path of the cyclone in Mozambique and another 920,000 had been affected in Malawi, Herve Verhoosel, senior spokesperson at the UN World Food Program, said. No figures were provided for Zimbabwe.

Heavy rains preceded the cyclone, compounding the problems.

“If the worst fears are realized ... then we can say that it is one of the worst weather-related disasters, tropical-cyclone-related disasters in the southern hemisphere,” Clare Nullis of the UN World Meteorological Organization said.

Droughts are classed as climate-related not weather-related.