Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Ramadan 17, 1445 H
broken clouds
weather
OMAN
23°C / 23°C
EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Cyclone Idai devastates Mozambique port city

1164496
1164496
minus
plus

HARARE/MAPUTO: The number of people killed in a powerful storm and preceding floods in Mozambique could exceed 1,000, the president said on Monday, putting the potential death toll greatly more than current figures.


Only 84 deaths have been confirmed so far in Mozambique as a result of Cyclone Idai, which has also left a trail of death and destruction across Zimbabwe and Malawi, with vast areas of land flooded, roads destroyed and communication wiped out.


Speaking on Radio Mocambique, President Filipe Nyusi said he had flown over the affected region, where two rivers had overflowed. Villages had disappeared, he said, and bodies were floating in the water.


“Everything indicates that we can register more than one thousand deaths,” he said.


In Zimbabwe, the Chimanimani district has been cut off from the rest of the country by torrential rains and winds of up to 170 km per hour that swept away roads, homes and bridges and knocked out power and communication lines.


Zimbabwean information ministry official Nick Mangwana said the number of confirmed deaths throughout the country was now 89. The body count is expected to rise.


The Mozambican state news agency put the death toll in Beira at 68, although television channel TVM reported that about 84 people had died across Mozambique.


Zimbabwean rescuers were struggling to reach people in Chimanimani, many of whom have been sleeping in the mountains since Friday, after their homes were flattened by rock falls and mudslides or washed away by torrential rains. Many families cannot bury the dead due to the floods.


The Harare government has declared a state of disaster in areas affected by the storm, the worst to hit the country since Cyclone Eline devastated eastern and southern Zimbabwe in 2000.


The country of 15 million people is already suffering a severe drought that has wilted crops. A United Nations humanitarian agency says 5.3 million people will require food aid.


In Beira, home to Mozambique’s second largest port which serves as gateway for imports to landlocked countries billboards were blown down and electricity and telephone poles knocked down.


Large swathes of land city’s outskirts were submerged, and many houses were destroyed. In some streets, people waded through knee-high water, avoiding piles of mangled metal, detached tin roofs and other debris. — Reuters


SHARE ARTICLE
arrow up
home icon