Cyclone Idai has left an unprecedented disaster in South-East Africa

The hurricane affected 2.6 million people in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. it's one of the worst weather disasters in the southern hemisphere

MAPUTO, Mozambique.-
Hundreds of thousands of people in southern Africa are struggling to survive the devastating cyclone Idai, which has caused widespread flooding in three countries and at least 300 deaths from rising water levels, avalanches and the destruction of homes, bridges and roads, in what is likely to become one of the worst climate disasters in the history of the southern hemisphere.

Rescuers were still trying to approach the victims in remote areas yesterday, five days after the cyclone entered Mozambique from the Indian Ocean, at a speed of up to 170 km. Its neighbors, Zimbabwe and Malawi, have also been severely affected.

The president of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi, said that it is only in his country that the number of victims could reach 1,000 people. Emergency crews did not confirm these numbers, but said it was the most destructive flood in the region for 20 years.

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He claimed that it would be one of the worst disasters for climatic reasons in the history of the southern hemisphere.

"This is the worst humanitarian crisis in Mozambique's recent history," said Jamie LeSueur, one of the heads of the intervention teams of the International Federation of Societies of the World. Red Cross and Red Crescent. At least 400,000 people became homeless.

"The humanitarian emergency is exacerbated from hour to hour," said Herve Verhoosel of the World Food Program, "a large number of people are piling up on rooftops and raised land at the same time. outside the port of Beira ". He added that two rivers have flooded vast areas and created interior oceans extending for miles.

The most affected area is the port city of Beira (Mozambique), with 500,000 inhabitants, where thousands of homes have been destroyed, while the main hospital has suffered significant damage. The rescue operations were concentrated at the airport, one of the few places in the city in communication.

The mbadive floods of the countryside have left thousands of victims in isolated areas, surrounded by destroyed roads, razed buildings and submerged villages waiting for the long-awaited rescue. People clung to the trees and piled on the roofs as the water rose rapidly.

The cyclone touched down last Thursday near Beira and progressed inland this weekend. In its final phase, which took place yesterday, it left heavy rains. Satellite imagery suggests that about 1.7 million people were on the hurricane path in Mozambique and 920,000 in Malawi.

In the town of Chimanimani, the men tried yesterday, with the help of sticks, to cross a river whose flow was raging. In Ngangu district, one of the most affected, more than a hundred houses were devastated by the winds, rains and rocks that broke loose, while, on the nearby ride, the cars and stones made a mess. Three people, including two students, died in a school because of the avalanche.

In the middle of the night "the water took my house, it immersed me," said Louange Chipore, a resident of Chimanimani who miraculously survived the hurricane. But he had no news of his daughter, who was sleeping beside her at the time of the tragedy.

Behind a military truck, dozens of people lined up patiently for food distribution. Among them, Tafadzwa Woyo, a woman with her hair wrapped in a blue and white fabric. "My father-in-law died in the collapse of his house and we are still looking for one of his children, who would be stuck under the rocks." We need help, "he said after the hurricane, a term used in the south-east of the country: the Indian Ocean and the South-West Pacific to phenomena equivalent to a hurricane (Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic) or a typhoon (Indian Ocean and the Sea of ​​Japan).

Amnesty International yesterday called on the international community to mobilize before the consequences of climate change. "Now that the effects of climate change are intensifying, it is possible that these extreme weather conditions occur more frequently," said Amnesty.

AP, AFP and Reuters agencies