sMozambique’s port city of Beira is reeling from the damage inflicted by Cyclone Idai.
So
far 200 people have been confirmed dead in the southern African country, but
the death toll could be much higher.
Those
who survived the disaster have had little reprieve to mourn the loss of their
loved ones or salvage the little that is remaining of their belongings. They
are in desperate need of food, shelter and clothing, as the BBC’s Pumza Fihlani
reports from Beira.
Inside a makeshift
response centre at the airport in Beira, aid agencies are scrambling to get to
those still trapped across the region.
It’s
the first point of call for all the teams coming in from around the world and
offers the first glimpse of how heavily this operation is relying on outside
help.
A
few kilometres away, panic is setting in. The people of Beira are growing
anxious – help is coming, but it is really slow and not nearly enough.
“I
have nothing. I have lost everything. We don’t have food. I don’t even have
blankets. We need help,” one woman tells me as we make our way through the
village of Manhava.
Beira’s
geography, with parts of it lying below sea level, has always made it
vulnerable to effects of extreme weather like Cyclone Ida which made landfall
last week with winds of up to 177 km/h (106 mph).
The city bore
the full brunt of the destructive storm, which triggered flooding of the whole
city and knocked down buildings and cut off roads. This is now stalling
rescuers from reaching desperate people in need.
Some people
here are trying to salvage what they can to create shelter. Those who can are
repairing their metal roofs, while others are tying together pine branches to
sleep under.
Homes have
been damaged, some even completely destroyed, and there are pools of water
everywhere.
A local
church has become a temporary home for scores of people. Half of its roof was
blown off, but the walls have held and to some it is better than being out in
the cold.
Everyone we
come across here is begging us to come into their homes to show us what they
have lost and how nature has stolen from them.
We are the first people they have seen since the cyclone hit a few days ago. –BBC
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