Agencies scramble to assist cyclone victims

BEIRA (Mozambique): Aid workers faced disarray, a clamour for help and mounting anger as they headed out across central Mozambique, struggling to assist tens of thousands of people battered by one of southern Africa’s most powerful storms.

A week after Tropical Cyclone Idai lashed Mozambique with winds of nearly 200kph, rescue efforts stepped up a gear on Friday but the situation was often chaotic.

Humanitarian agencies are racing to rescue those still trapped, feed those who have been brought to safety and protect them from potential outbreaks of malaria and cholera.

“Already, some cholera cases have been reported in (the port city of) Beira along with an increasing number of malaria infections among people trapped by the flooding,” said the International Federation of Red Cross as the current death toll was set at 417 yesterday.

The mayor of Diaz Simango said that cases of diarrhoeal infections had already been reported.

“We are running out of time, it is at a critical point here,” UN children’s agency chief Henrietta Fore said after she flew into the devastated port city of Beira from New York.

Hygiene and safe drinking water are absolute priorities, she warned.

“There’s stagnant water, it’s not draining, decomposing bodies, lack of good hygiene and sanitation,” Fore said.

“We are worried about cholera, about malaria, because of the stagnant water.”

Aid group Doctors Without Borders said people were also at risk of respiratory infections such as pneumonia.

World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman Gerald Bourke said the aid effort was “slow to start, (but)... is now accelerating, thankfully”.

WFP declared the flood crisis a level three emergency, putting it on a par with Yemen, Syria and South Sudan.

Relief agencies said the gravity of the cyclone and scale of the flooding it unleashed had been extremely shocking.