Manicaland battles with aftermath of deadly Idai
● Zimbabwean Fanuel Mazwati, 27, was going about his job herding cattle in Ndima village close to the Mozambican border last week when disaster struck in the destructive guise of Cyclone Idai.
Five days later family members buried his already decomposing body. Though his body was in a bad state, his family could at least start getting closure, unlike the more than 50 families in the area still unable to bury their dead because they cannot get to the affected areas.
The army is constructing detour roads after main roads were damaged or rendered impassable.
And there are fears that another disaster is looming in the Vumba area, where a dam is likely to collapse because of the flooding.
Officials are battling to convince people in the area to evacuate.
The smell of death permeates Ngangu township in the Chimanimani district, where out of necessity victims of the cyclone are being buried in mass graves.
The eastern province of Manicaland was Zimbabwe’s worst-hit area. Overland, it is just over 430km from Beira in Mozambique, which bore the brunt of the cyclone.
“Our brother Fanuel was buried on Wednesday with the assistance of the government, but his body was in a bad state … it took us time to go and identify the body,” said Dakarai Mazwati.
Official figures indicate that the death toll in the region has risen to 139, and so far only 74 bodies have been buried.
In addition, 189 people have been reported missing, 19 are critically ill, 144 injured, 136 marooned and a total of 4,313 people displaced.
The army is still busy airlifting people to safer areas.
Lovemore Sithole and his family are among those who also had to bury a loved one this week.
Elliot Sithole, 17, succumbed to injuries sustained when the family home collapsed while the family were asleep.
The family are still searching for Kudzai Sithole, another family member, who has not been seen since the cyclone hit.
“We could not put the body of our deceased son in a mortuary because of many reasons beyond our control,” said Lovemore.
“We had to conduct a hurried burial without following our customary traditions.”
The experiences of the Sithole family reflected the looming health crisis in the wake of the cyclone.
In Chimanimani, hospital mortuaries are all full. Only one of the four hospital mortuaries in Chipinge is functional.
Chief Muusha, who oversees the district, said he had been directing families to conduct burials and not wait for government assistance.
He said mortuary services are “something we had to overlook considering the nature of the disaster and number of people affected and little resources available”.
The government is waiting for the next of kin of the deceased to positively identify their relatives before burial, thereby delaying burials.
The president of the Chiefs Council, Fortune Charumbira, said the aftermath of Cyclone Idai was a painful lesson for Zimbabwe and a reminder that precautionary measures were necessary to mitigate the effects of future disasters.
“This is a lesson we have learnt, that if we hear of any cyclone in future of this magnitude coming our way from Mozambique, we need to take action and evacuate people in disaster-prone areas in time,” he said.
Manicaland provincial administrator, Edgar Seenza said the government tried to evacuate people but faced resistance.
“They thought this cyclone would be like the previous one. We tried to appeal to people to move. Right now there is an imminent disaster in the Vumba area where a dam is likely to collapse because of the flooding and we are appealing to those people again and they are reluctant,” said Seenza.