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Humanitarian workers ran Wednesday to help survivors and meet in spiral
humanitarian needs in three countries in southern Africa affected by
worst storm in the region for years.
Five days after the tropical cyclone
Idai swept through Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, confirmed the
the death toll rises to more than 300 and to hundreds of thousands of lives
were at risk, officials said.
Mozambique, where the monster storm landed early last Friday, is in turmoil.
"We have
Thousands of people … in roofs and trees waiting for rescue ", Caroline
Haga, spokesperson for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies, said.
"We are running out of time, people waiting to be rescued for
more than three days now, "she told AFP in the storm-ravaged coastal region
city of Beira.
She added: "Unfortunately, we can not take everyone, so we prioritize children, pregnant women and the wounded."
Explainer: Why is the cyclone in southern Africa so violent?
Hundreds of thousands of people are in danger after pbading a cyclone in central Mozambique and heavy rains that continue to fall. Help groups report that people hang on to roofs and trees when rivers overflow and water rises. The authorities openly fear that the world has not grasped the gravity of the crisis.
Survivor Aunicia Jose, 24, speaking in the district of Buzi, near Beira,
"The situation is very bad, we have not eaten since Thursday, until that
aujourd & # 39; hui.
"We sleep outside, everything is destroyed, our houses are destroyed, everything is gone, we have not recovered."
Deborah Nguyen, spokesperson for the World Food Program (WFP), told AFP in Beira that "the priority today is to rush to rescue people stranded in the flooded areas", just as much than to organize a temporary shelter for the saved people.
"The situation has not really improved. In Buzi, the villages are still under water but the good news is that many rescue teams work all day long.
"Relief operations are progressing, but there is still a lot of work to do."
The UN aims to help some 600,000 people over the next few weeks.
LILY: After Hurricane Idai: Donation Donors Intensifies Relief Operations
Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi said Tuesday that 202 people have died, according to the latest report, nearly 350,000 people are at risk.
In Zimbabwe, the death toll rises to 100 on Wednesday, but is expected to reach 300, with nearly 15,000 people reportedly affected by the storm.
In Malawi, nearly one million people have been affected and more than 80,000 have been forced to leave their homes, according to the UN.
Flooding shock
Humanitarian agencies prepared for the cyclone that landed early Friday, but not for the mbadive floods that followed.
Mozambique has been most affected by the rivers flowing downstream from its neighbors.
"No one was prepared for the floods, the cyclone caused torrential rains in Zimbabwe and Malawi and all the water came here," Haga said.
Beira Airport, partially damaged by the storm and temporarily closed, has reopened to become the center of relief operations but is not large enough.
READ: SADC countries "fully prepared" for Cyclone Idai – Sisulu
Members of the air forces of Mozambique and South Africa have been mobilized to conduct rescue missions and distribute aid, which can not be transported by air, the roads leaving Beira having been destroyed.
A government official who asked not to be identified spoke of the edge of a road after being rescued by boat to Nhamatanda, about 60 km northwest of Beira, claiming that "it is the first time our generation sees this situation. "
Climate specialist John Mutter, a professor at the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York, said the high toll was partly due to the low frequency of such weather events in southern Africa.
"Mozambique and Zimbabwe are essentially unprepared, they both have weak governance that, frankly, focuses on many more urgent things (as they would see it), and as cyclones are so rare in this part of the world. world, the preparation is minimal, "Mutter told AFP.
"A whole village swept away"
In Zimbabwe, at least 217 people are missing in Chimanimani, Manicaland, an eastern province on the border with Mozambique.
The district remains isolated after roads have been swallowed by vast sinkholes and bridges have been ravaged by sudden floods – a landscape that Defense Minister Perrance Shiri has described as "a landscape resembling the consequences of the floods". a war of great magnitude ".
Families used hoes to dig mounds of earth in search of their missing relatives, an AFP correspondent said.
After visiting some of the victims at Chimanimani, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa said that a "tragedy has visited us".
"The last place we visited, where the three main rivers merge, an entire village was washed away, I think these are the bodies that are now found in Mozambique," he said.
The three countries are among the poorest in the region and rely heavily on foreign aid.
In Rome, Pope Francis expressed "my pain and my closeness" to those affected by the disaster.
"I entrust the many victims and their families to the mercy of God and I implore comfort and support for the people affected by this calamity," he said, addressing thousands of pilgrims. St. Peter's Square.
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