A U.N. official said that “the world still really hasn’t caught on to how severe this disaster is.”
By Max Bearak Max Bearak Africa bureau chief based in Nairobi Email Bio Follow March 19 at 10:35 AM NAIROBI — Government and aid agency officials sounded the alarm on Tuesday after flights over a vast area of wreckage wrought by Cyclone Idai in Zimbabwe, Malawi and especially Mozambique spurred fears of a massive human toll.
Aerial footage showed miles and miles of submerged areas, both rural and urban. Mozambique’s fourth-largest city, Beira, appeared worst hit, with the Red Cross estimating that 90 percent of the buildings in the city of half a million people were damaged or destroyed. The storm made landfall with sustained winds equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane in a region with weak infrastructure.
Heavy rains are expected to continue through Tuesday. The United Nations estimated that more than 2.5 million people need immediate assistance. And with the crops and homes of thousands of families destroyed, a prolonged humanitarian crisis appeared inevitable. Heavy rains fell in the region ahead of the cyclone’s landfall, paving the way for an unprecedented storm surge and the breaching of rivers. More than 120 people were killed by the earlier rains in Malawi, where drought conditions gave way to flooding. Malawi’s government has reported 56 additional deaths since Idai made landfall.
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