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Anonymous ID: 81d939 March 23, 2019, 10:24 a.m. No.5847534   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>7563 >>7570 >>7594

Death toll from southern Africa cyclone, floods exceeds 700

 

BEIRA, Mozambique: Mozambique reported scores more deaths Saturday from a cyclone and floods around southern Africa that have killed at least 732 people and left thousands in desperate need of help, many on rooftops and trees.

Cyclone Idai lashed the Mozambican port city of Beira with winds of up to 170 km per hour (105 miles per hour) last week, then moved inland to Zimbabwe and Malawi, swamping populations and devastating homes.

Mozambique's death toll rose to 417 from 242, Land and Environment Minister Celso Correia said.

 

"The situation is getting better, still critical, but it's getting better," he told reporters at the airport in Beira that has become a center for aid operations.

The storm has also killed 259 in Zimbabwe, while in Malawi 56 people died in heavy rains ahead of the cyclone.

In all three countries, survivors have been digging through rubble to search for victims, and scrambling for shelter, food and water, while governments and aid agencies rush in help.

 

"All our food got wet, we didn't know where to go with the children. We don't have anything," said Mimi Manuel, a 26-year-old mother of four who lost her home and was sitting on the floor of a makeshift shelter in a primary school in Beira.

At the refuge, families cooked with wood from trees ripped up by the storm, as toddlers played around battered school desks. Manuel wore a necklace with the word "Hope."

The UN, warning of more suffering, stepped 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.

 

Humanitarian agencies are racing against the clock to help people, many of whom have not had a meal in days.

Poor sanitary conditions mean disease is now a real concern.

"Already, some cholera cases have been reported in (the port city of) Beira along with an increasing number of malaria infections among people trapped by the flooding," the International Federation of the Red Cross said in a statement.

Even some of those rescued and in shelters are in overcrowded conditions and poor hygiene places them at risk. UNICEF estimates at least a million children have been affected by the storm.

Aid group Doctors Without Borders said people were also at risk of respiratory infections such as pneumonia.

 

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2019/Mar-23/479570-africa-cyclone-death-toll-surges-past-600-worst-yet-to-come.ashx