Maputo (Mozambique): Mozambique president Filipe Nyus said that as high as 1,000 people could have killed as Cyclone Idai battered the country. Nyusi flew over some of the worst-hit areas said he saw bodies floating in the rivers. The storm made landfall near the port city of Beira on Thursday with winds of up to 177 km/h, but aid teams only reached the city on Sunday.
A UN aid worker said that every building in Beira - home to half a million people - had been damaged. Gerald Bourke, from the UN's World Food Programme, said: "No building is untouched. There is no power and telecommunications. The streets are littered with fallen electricity lines. "The roofs on so many houses have fallen in, likewise the walls. A lot of people in the city have lost their homes."
The official death toll in Mozambique stands at 84 following flooding and high winds. The cyclone has killed at least 180 people across southern Africa. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Society (IFRC) described the damage as "massive and horrifying." In Zimbabwe, at least 98 people have died and 217 people are missing, the government said. Malawi was also badly hit. The flooding there, caused by the rains before the cyclone made landfall, led to at least 122 deaths, Reliefweb reports. The UK government said it would provide humanitarian aid worth £6million to Mozambique and Malawi. It also said it would send tents and thousands of shelter kits to Mozambique.
How bad is the damage in Beira?
Most of those known to have died so far were killed around Beira, Mozambique's fourth largest city with a population of about 500,000, authorities said. More than 1,500 people were injured by falling trees and debris from buildings, officials said.
Situation in Zimbabwe
A state of disaster has been declared in Zimbabwe. President Emmerson Mnangagwa has returned home early from a trip to the United Arab Emirates to "make sure he is involved directly with the national response", the authorities say.
