Beira: Over 1,000 people were feared dead after cyclone Idai battered Mozambique submerging entire villages and leaving bodies floating in the floodwaters, the nation's President Filipe Nyusi said.
Cyclone Idai could prove to be the deadliest storm in generations to hit the impoverished southeast African country of 30 million people.
It hit Beira, an Indian Ocean port city of a half-million people, late on Thursday and then moved inland to Zimbabwe and Malawi with strong winds and heavy rain.
But it took days for the scope of the disaster to come into focus in Mozambique, which has a poor communication and transportation network and a corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy.
The Red Cross said that 90 percent of the central port city had been damaged or destroyed.
The cyclone cut off electricity, forced the airport to shut down and cut off road access to the rest of the country.
In the nearby village of Inhamizua the local secondary school was used as an emergency shelter for local residents.
Around 300 people had sought shelter as Cyclone Idai made landfall, generating winds of over 200 kilometres an hour (124 miles an hour) and torrential rain.
Some of the school buildings were badly damaged in the storm and local people say they have lost everything.
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In the village of Praia Nova, poorly constructed homes were extremely vulnerable to high winds and rain and the damage has been widespread.
"In all my life I have never see such a storm like this," one local resident said.
UN agencies and the Red Cross are helping with rescue efforts that include delivering food supplies and medicines by helicopter in the impoverished countries.
