Mozambique cyclone death toll climbs to 417: government

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Flood water covers the ground between rubble where there once use to be houses at an informal settlement in Beira, the fourth largest city in Mozambique, on March 23, 2019. – The man lost his house in Cyclone Idai and he has been rebuilding it the past week. The UN is stepping up calls for help in Mozambique as aid agencies struggle to assist tens of thousands of people battered by one of southern Africa’s most powerful cyclones. A week after Tropical Cyclone Idai lashed Mozambique with winds of nearly 200 kilometres (120 miles) per hour, survivors are struggling in desperate conditions — some still trapped on roof tops and those saved needing food and facing the risk of outbreaks of disease such as cholera. (Photo by WIKUS DE WET / AFP)

 

BEIRA, Mozambique (AFP) — The death toll in Mozambique has climbed to 417 after a cyclone devastated swathes of the southern African country, flooding thousands of square kilometres (miles), the government said Saturday.

Cyclone Idai smashed into the coast of central Mozambique on Friday last week, unleashing hurricane-force winds and rains that flooded the hinterland and drenched eastern Zimbabwe.

“At this time 417 deaths have been recorded,” Lands and Environment Minister Celso Correia told reporters in the port city of Beira.

The new numbers take the combined death toll of the two neighbouring countries to 676.

Nearly 90,000 Mozambicans have been moved into shelters, while thousands of others are still stranded in floodwaters.

The government estimates that around one million people have been affected by the storm.

“We are living an unprecedented natural disaster. A disaster that only matches major disasters,” the minister said.

“Unfortunately no one in the region and in the world could predict a disaster of this size,” he said as the UN stepped up calls for aid for the ravaged and impoverished country.

 

© Agence France-Presse