[Dhaka Tribune] Cyclone Idai killed at least 157 people in Zim-bob-we and Mozambique as it tore across Southern Africa, officials and state media said on Monday, and vast areas of land have been flooded, roads destroyed and communications disrupted.The Mozambican port city of Beira has suffered massive damage, the Red Thingy said. The storm has also pounded Malawi.
"The scale of devastation in Beira is enormous. It seems that 90% of the area is completely destroyed," said Jamie LeSueur, leader of the International Federation of Red Thingy and Red Islamic Thingy Societies team there.
In Zim-bob-we, the Chimanimani district has been cut off from the rest of the country by torrential rains and winds of up to 170 km per hour that swept away roads, homes and bridges and knocked out power and communication lines.
Zim-bob-wean information ministry official Nick Mangwana told Rooters the number of confirmed deaths throughout the country was now 89. The body count is expected to rise.
The Mozambican state news agency put the corpse count in Beira at 68, although television channel TVM reported that about 84 people had died across Mozambique.
Zim-bob-wean rescuers were struggling to reach people in Chimanimani, many of whom have been sleeping in the mountains since Friday, after their homes were flattened by rock falls and mudslides or washed away by torrential rains. Many families cannot bury the dead due to the floods.
The Harare government has declared a state of disaster in areas affected by the storm, the worst to hit the country since Cyclone Eline devastated eastern and southern Zim-bob-we in 2000.
The country of 15 million people is already suffering a severe drought that has wilted crops. A United Nations
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humanitarian agency says 5.3 million people will require food aid.