Southern Africa is faced with a humanitarian crisis as another cyclone hits Mozambique and Zimbabwe. 2.6 million people are affected as rescuers struggle to reach victims trapped on rooftops and trees in remote areas. More than 300 are feared dead in aftermath of cyclone Idai. After the cyclone hit Mozambique and Zimbabwe, it also hit Malawi where 80,000 have been forced out of their homes.
Four days after tropical cyclone Idai made landfall, emergency teams in central Mozambique fanned out in boats and helicopters, seeking to pluck survivors from roofs and treetops in an inland sea of floodwater, sometimes in the dead of night. According to aid workers, survivors are trapped.
Air force personnel from Mozambique and South Africa were drafted in to fly rescue missions, while an NGO called Rescue South Africa said it had picked up 34 people since Friday night, using three helicopters.
"It is the only way to access the people that are stranded," Rescue SA's Abrie Senekal said, adding the NGO was trying to hire more helicopters.
Thousands of children lived in areas completely engulfed by water. In many places, no roofs or treetops are even visible above the floods. In other areas, people are clinging to rooftops desperately waiting to be rescued," said Machiel Pouw, Save the Children's response leader in Mozambique. $3.97 million in emergency aid has been announced by the European union for the three countries, while UN has announced aid worth $5 million.
Ian Scher, said, "Sometimes we can only save two out of five, sometimes we drop food and go to someone else who's in bigger danger."
In Nhamatanda, some 60 kilometres (40 miles) northwest of Beira, 27-year-old Jose Batio and his wife and children survived by climbing onto a roof.
But a lot of their neighbours "were swept by the water," he said.
"Water came like a tsunami and destroyed most things. We were prisoners on the roof," he said after they were rescued by boat.
Large areas of Beira city, Mozambique is badly flooded with flood waters being several meters deep. The country's second largest city and a major port, was immediately cut off after the storm.
According to the Red Cross, the cyclone damaged or destroyed 90 percent of the city of half a million people.
President Nyusi, speaking on Tuesday after attending a cabinet meeting in the ravaged city, said the confirmed death toll stood at 202 and nearly 350,000 were "at risk". In Beira, victims have been injured by the flying metal sheets from the roofs of houses in the area.
A national emergency was declared by the government. "We are in an extremely difficult situation," Nyusi said, warning of high tides and waves of around eight metres (26 feet) in the coming days. In Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world, more than 50,000 have been rendered homeless owing to the cyclone.
The storm also lashed eastern Zimbabwe, leaving around 100 dead, a toll that could be as much as 300, local government minister July Moyo said after a cabinet briefing.
"I understand there are bodies which are floating, some have floated all the way to Mozambique," he said.
"The total number, we were told they could be 100, some are saying there could be 300. But we cannot confirm this situation," he said.
At least 217 others are missing and 44 stranded, officials said. Authorities in Mozambique and Zimbabwe have been urged by international human rights organization, Amnesty to adopt climate change policies so that disasters like these can be avoided.
Worst hit was Chimanimani in Manicaland, an eastern province which borders Mozambique.
Families started burying their dead in damp graves on Monday, as injured survivors filled up the hospitals.
Defence Minister Perrance Shiri said "resembles the aftermath of a full-scale war".
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said it was mobilising aid for some 600,000 people, saying the world did not yet appreciate the scale of the "massive disaster".
So far, it has dispatched more than five tonnes of emergency provisions to the affected areas.
WFP spokesman Herve Verhoosel said,"I don't think that the world (has) realised yet the scale of the problem." In Malawi, 920,000 people have been affected by the cyclone and 82,000 people have been displaced, the UN said.
"OCHA (the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) has deployed resources to support assessments and information management, and UNICEF is deploying additional supplies to affected areas including tents, water and sanitation supplies and learning materials to affected children," it said.
