1,000 feared dead in Mozambique storm
150
Missing in Zimbabwe
beira (Mozambique) — More than a thousand people are feared to have died in a cyclone that smashed into Mozambique, while scores have been killed and more than 150 are missing in neighbouring Zimbabwe.
The city of Beira in central Mozambique bore Cyclone Idai’s full wrath on Thursday before the storm barrelled on to neighbouring Zimbabwe, unleashing fierce winds and flash floods and washing away roads and houses.
“For the moment we have registered 84 deaths officially, but when we flew over the area ... this morning to understand what’s going on, everything indicates that we could register more than 1,000 deaths,” Mozambican President Felipe Nyusi said in a nationwide address.
“The scale of damage... (in) Beira is massive and horrifying”, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said.
Ninety per cent of the city of some 530,000 people and its surrounding area has been “damaged or destroyed,” it said in a statement.
“The situation is terrible. The scale of devastation is enormous,” the IFRC’s Jamie LeSueur said.
“Almost everything is destroyed. Communication lines have been completely cut and roads have been destroyed. Some affected communities are not accessible.”