Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi cyclone survivors risk fatal diseases

At least half a million survivors of a powerful cyclone in southeast Africa are at risk of fatal diseases, from cholera and dysentery to malaria, aid workers warned yesterday, as rescue teams struggled to reach flood-hit communities.

Packing wind speeds of up to 170 kph (105 mph), Cyclone Idai hit Mozambique’s port city of Beira on March 14 before moving inland to neighboring Malawi and Zimbabwe in one of the worst climate-related disasters to hit the southern hemisphere.

At least 360 people have died, and 2.6 million people have been affected, the United Nations said, as Idai’s winds ripped apart homes, schools and medical centers. Accompanying heavy rains have triggered floods, inundating swathes of farmland.

“Health clinics and services have broken down, water supplies are damaged and the only reservoir with treated water has only one to two days of drinking water left,” said James Kambaki from the health charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

“People will resort to drinking water contaminated with waste and sewage as well as dead bodies which will be discovered as water levels recede,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Johannesburg.  Kambaki said MSF teams were working in all three countries and were providing aid to survivors, but added that the magnitude of the disaster was still unfolding and that there would be increased need to focus on efforts to curb epidemics.

Mildred Makore, a director of programs with Mercy Corps in Zimbabwe, said populated areas such as Chimanimani town, were still cut off by road. With no power, hospitals had run out of fuel to operate back-up generators.