Floods leave hundreds dead in southern Africa
CHIMANIMANI, Zimbabwe — Aid workers rushed to rescue victims clinging to trees and crammed on rooftops Tuesday after a cyclone unleashed devastating floods in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. More than 350 people were confirmed dead, hundreds were missing and thousands more were at risk.
In Mozambique, the rapidly rising floodwaters created “an inland ocean,” endangering tens of thousands of families, aid workers said as they scrambled to rescue survivors and airdrop food, water and blankets to survivors of Cyclone Idai.
“This is the worst humanitarian crisis in Mozambique’s recent history,” said Jamie LeSueur, head of response efforts for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi said late Tuesday more than 200 people had been confirmed dead in his country. Earlier he said the death toll could reach 1,000.
At least 400,000 people were left homeless.
In Zimbabwe’s eastern mountain areas bordering Mozambique, residents struggled to cope with the disaster.
“There was a house there, it was buried and the owners may have been buried with it. They are missing,” said Zacharia Chinyai of the Zimbabwean border town of Chimanimani. Mr. Chinyai lost 12 relatives in the disaster.
The cyclone took residents by surprise, Mr. Chinyai said.
“We heard news on the radio” about the flooding in neighboring Mozambique, he said. “But we never thought we could also be victims . ... No one told us it was going to be this devastating.”
Chipo Dhliwayo lost her daughters, 4-year-old Anita and 8-year-old Amanda.
“I wasn’t able to save anything except this baby,” she said of her lone surviving child, a 6-month-old son, who suffered eye and facial injuries.
Government and aid agency officials sounded the alarm on Tuesday after flights over a vast area of wreckage wrought by Cyclone Idai in southeast Africa — and especially Mozambique — spurred fears of a massive human toll.
The cyclone created southern Africa’s most destructive flooding in 20 years, said emergency workers. Heavy rains were expected to continue through Thursday.
Mozambique’s Pungue and Buzi rivers overflowed, creating “inland oceans extending for miles and miles in all directions,” said Herve Verhoosel of the World Food Program.