The destructive cyclone that tore through Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi late last week could be one of the worst natural disasters ever to hit the southern hemisphere, the UN have said.
It’s estimated that as many as 2.6 million people have been affected by the cyclone and while the official death toll in the three nations stands at just over 250 people – 200 in Mozambique, 98 in Zimbabwe and 56 in Malawi, there are expectations it will rise.
Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi, who has said he fears the death toll in his nation alone could top 1,000, has said his government will declare a national emergency and has announced three days of national mourning.
The World Food Programme has said that an estimated 1.7 million people were in the direct path of the cyclone in Mozambique alone with almost a million affected in Malawi and thousands more in Zimbabwe.
The WFP have described the situation in Mozambique, where the port city of Beira is among the worst affected areas with more than 90 per cent of the city of 500,000 reportedly destroyed, as “a major humanitarian emergency that is getting bigger by the hour”.
Jamie LeSueur, who is leading the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ response on the ground, described the situation on Tuesday as the “worst humanitarian crisis in Mozambique’s recent history”.
“It is a humanitarian catastrophe for the people of central Mozambique. Large parts of Beira have been damaged, entire villages and towns have been completely flooded. Rescuers are scrambling to pull people trapped on rooftops and in trees to safety. Many, many families have lost everything.”
He added that the “scale of suffering and loss is still not clear, and we expect that the number of people affected as well as the number of people who have lost their lives may rise”.
Rick Emenaker, a pilot doing a survey for Mercy Air and Mission Aviation Fellowship over affected regions in Mozambique said it was “a heartbreaking flight today as we flew over many miles of flooded land in the Buzi River basin”.
“We saw many people stranded on roof tops surrounded by kilometres of water,” he said in comments reported on Zimbabwe’s Lowvelder website. “It was difficult to comprehend and think about that probably many have perished…A number of villages were completely buried in the flood waters. The magnitude of this disaster is hard to comprehend and we are glad we are able to be here to help. Please keep the people of Mozambique in your prayers as they struggle with this difficult situation that has no short term end in sight.”
Jill Lovell, an Australian nun who runs a mission school in Beira, reportedly described the situation there as a “total mess”.
“People are in trees and on rooftops. Emergency relief crews are slowly coming in. Rains continue to make it all even harder. So many lives lost and homes destroyed.”
