All Photos: Josh Estey/CARE News
All Photos: Josh Estey/CARE News
Cyclone Idai has wiped out villages and destroyed road and bridges. Hundreds of people are missing, and 1,000 are feared dead. Officials expect the death toll to rise due to the ongoing risk of flooding in the cyclone-affected area. While there is a massive need for lifesaving aid, delivery of supplies is extremely difficult as swelling rivers have left affected communities, particularly in central Mozambique (pictured below), nearly impossible to reach.
“First the winds started. The next day the water flooded our home so we started running. I saved my children, but I lost my ducks, goats and my clothes. So now we have nothing to eat. We are sleeping alone on this road and when it rains, we will be flooded again.” Morganda Albino, 30, fled the rising waters with her five children in the village of Tica, Mozambique.
“People are in the trees. They have been in the trees since Friday and don’t have anything to eat.”
Luis Bernardo, 26, is a fisherman whose home was flooded in the village of Tica, Mozambique. He has been using his boat to rescue up to 20 people a day. It takes him six hours round-trip to reach flood victims sheltering in treetops.
“I take my small boat to help rescue them. The situation is bad and there are many people stranded. How will they survive?”
“Our home has been destroyed by the cyclone. We lost everything. Nothing is left,” says Julia, 37-year-old mother of three who fled with her children from their village to the city of Beira.
“We don’t have food, clothes, blankets for the night. I have experienced storms in previous years. But this was the first year I have experienced anything like this.”
