Dozens dead, missing after tropical cyclone

At least 48 people have been killed in Mozambique and 39 in neighbouring Zimbabwe after tropical cyclone Idai tore through the two countries, officials and media said on Sunday.

Dozens of others are missing after the storm brought strong winds, heavy rains and flash flooding, destroying bridges and sweeping away homes in parts of the two adjacent nations.

Mozambique’s state-owned Jornal Domingo newspaper reported 48 people had died so far in the worst-hit central Sofala province.

Zimbabwe government spokesperson Nick Mangwana said the death toll in the country was now at 39.

“Rescue and recovery efforts are ongoing,” Mangwana said.

He said most of the deaths occurred in the Ngangu township in a valley in Chimanimani town, where more than 100 houses were washed away.

Two of the victims were pupils who died after a landslide sent a boulder crashing into their dormitory, collapsing the wall of the diningroom and trapping 50 of them, the country’s department of civil protection said.

The boarding school was shut as the army, which is leading rescue operations, moved in to take the nearly 200 pupils to safety.

The United Nations said more than 100 people were missing in Zimbabwe and up to 9,600 were affected.

About 300 refugees who were housed at Tongogara Refugee Camp in the southeast have been affected and 49 houses damaged.

Strong winds ripped roofs off prison cells in the southern city of Masvingo, according to state broadcaster ZBC.

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who cut short his visit to Abu Dhabi, has declared a state of disaster in the affected areas.

Tropical cyclone Idai battered central Mozambique on Friday, cutting off more than 500,000 residents of the port city Beira.

The city’s airport was set to open on Sunday as flights began taking off from the capital Maputo bound for Beira.

An AFP journalist who was on a flight to Beira said most passengers were going to check on their families who they hadn’t heard from since the cyclone hit.

Even before the cyclone made landfall, heavy rains earlier in the week had claimed 66 lives and forced 17,000 people from their homes in Mozambique, officials said.