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Cyclone Idai aftermath – A trail of destruction in pictures and videos
4:12 CAT | 19 Mar 2019
Beira. Photo courtesy: Fanie Jordan
More than a thousand people are feared to have died in a cyclone that smashed into Mozambique last week, while scores were killed and more than 200 are missing in neighbouring Zimbabwe.
The city of Beira in central Mozambique bore Cyclone Idai’s full wrath on Thursday before the storm barrelled on to neighbouring Zimbabwe, unleashing fierce winds and flash floods and washing away roads and houses.
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Beira today: The cyclone cometh – In pics and videos
“For the moment we have registered 84 deaths officially, but when we flew over the area… this morning to understand what’s going on, everything indicates that we could register more than 1,000 deaths,” Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi said in a nationwide address.
“This is a real humanitarian disaster,” he said. “More than 100,000 people are in danger”.
Survivors have taken refuge in trees while awaiting help, the president added.
Aerial photographs released by a Christian non-profit organisation, the Mission Aviation Fellowship, showed groups of people stuck on rooftops with flood waters up to window level.
“The scale of damage… (in) Beira is massive and horrifying”, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said.
Ninety percent of the city of some 530,000 people and its surrounding area has been “damaged or destroyed,” it said in a statement.
“The situation is terrible. The scale of devastation is enormous,” the IFRC’s Jamie LeSueur said.
“Almost everything is destroyed. Communication lines have been completely cut and roads have been destroyed. Some affected communities are not accessible.”
A large dam burst on Sunday and cut off the last road to Beira, he said.
More footage from Lynda Abbott-Charles of extreme flooding in Mozambique pic.twitter.com/XhjFAMIJVo
— Storm Report SA (@StormReportSA1) March 18, 2019
Sofala province governor Alberto Mondlane warned that the “biggest threat we have now, even bigger than the cyclone, is floods because it’s raining more and more”.
South African disaster workers are in Mozambique helping to rescue people.
eNCA reporter Dasen Thathiah is in Beira with the rescue team.
Video sent in by Lynda Abbott-Charles. Mozambique experiencing extreme floods. pic.twitter.com/TmiiabIuVM
— Storm Report SA (@StormReportSA1) March 18, 2019
Beira views, courtesy of Fanie Jordan:
Beira’s Clube Naútico:
This just in: shocking footage from our team via helicopter that has just arrived in #Beira, #Mozambique. The devastation is widespread with barely a house intact following #CycloneIdaipic.twitter.com/BnyqVIJ9YF
— IFRC Africa (@IFRCAfrica) March 17, 2019
Source: eNCA / Socia Media
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