Disease fears mount for Africa cyclone survivors

People watch the N6 road rebuilt in three days by China State Construction after the original road was destroyed by the Cyclone Idai in John Segredo, Mozambique, on March 24, 2019. Disease is threatening to aggravate the already dire conditions facing millions of survivors following the powerful tropical cyclone. PHOTO | YASUYOSHI CHIBA | AFP

What you need to know:

  • Cyclone Idai smashed into Mozambique's coast unleashing hurricane-force wind and rain.
  • The rain flooded swathes of the poor country before battering eastern Zimbabwe — killing 705 people across the two nations.
  • Mozambique Lands Minister Celso Correia said it was now "inevitable that cases of cholera and malaria will arise".

Beira

Disease is threatening to aggravate the already dire conditions facing millions of survivors following the powerful tropical cyclone which ravaged southern Africa 10 days ago, officials warned on Sunday.

Cyclone Idai smashed into Mozambique's coast unleashing hurricane-force wind and rain that flooded swathes of the poor country before battering eastern Zimbabwe — killing 705 people across the two nations.

Amid the ongoing crisis, Zimbabwean television ZBC on Sunday reported that a young woman had given birth while sheltering from the floods in a tree.

A man walks with wood collected on the beach to prepare his house in the Praia Move area in Beira, Mozambique on March 24, 2019. PHOTO | WIKUS DE WET | AFP

MALARIA, CHOLERA

Speaking at a briefing in Beira, 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) northeast of the Mozambique capital Maputo, Lands Minister Celso Correia said it was now "inevitable that cases of cholera and malaria will arise".

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs' deputy head Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, also at the briefing, warned that disease outbreaks in inaccessible areas could be "really problematic".

Men push a cart full of rubble and rocks collected from houses destroyed by the cyclone Idai, to rebuild other houses, on the beach in the Praia Nova area in Beira, Mozambique on March 24, 2019. PHOTO | WIKUS DE WET | AFP

HUMANITARIAN DISASTER

The World Food Programme said Friday that the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Mozambique was on a par with the situation in Yemen and Syria which are both in the grip of civil wars.

Aid workers from across the world are continuing to arrive in the region to bring help to hundreds of thousands of affected people across an area of roughly 3,000 square kilometres (around 1,160 square miles).

Survivors are struggling in desperate conditions with some still trapped on rooftops and those rescued in urgent need of food and medical supplies.

Girls collect artificial flowers from the rubble of a building destroyed by the cyclone Idai at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Beira, Mozambique on March 24, 2019. PHOTO | YASUYOSHI CHIBA | AFP

TREATMENT CENTRE

"The government is already setting up a cholera treatment centre to mitigate cholera. We should not be frightened when cholera issues arise," added Correia, describing efforts to control the emerging humanitarian crisis.

"It is normal. It's almost inevitable. Malaria, we know how it arises. We have lots of wetlands and we're going to have malaria that is sure to come up (there)."

Wilfried Deliviai, a 19-year-old resident of Beira which was caught in the eye of the storm, said he felt "sorry for our town, our city, because we suffered a lot to build it".

Children play in a new stream created by flooded water after the passage of the cyclone Idai in Tica, Mozambique, on March 24, 2019. PHOTO | YASUYOSHI CHIBA | AFP

HOUSES DESTROYED

"Houses are completely destroyed, and some people don't have money to rebuild their businesses — and many businesses are going to fail," he told AFP.

More than two million people have been affected in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi where the storm started as a tropical depression causing flooding which killed 60 and displaced nearly a million people. Hundreds are still missing in Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

In its daily update, OCHA said 74,600 women impacted by the cyclone are pregnant and around 60 percent of them are due to give birth within the next six months.

At least 7,460 of them are at risk of life threatening complications.

People walk on the N6 road reconstructed in three days by China State Construction after the original road was destroyed by the cyclone Idai in John Segredo, on March 24, 2019. PHOTO | YASUYOSHI CHIBA CHIBA | AFP

OPEN ROAD

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had recorded some cases of cholera so far but the UN was unable to confirm the reports.

Stampa described efforts to re-open the main access road to Beira as a "big victory".

"We will be able to bring more help to families living in this affected area," he said.

Those living in affected areas of Mozambique began to trickle back to church over the weekend.

The Ponta Gea Catholic Cathedral in Beira was miraculously undamaged by the storm while the church next door was levelled.

Devotees of Jehovah's Witnesses on March 24, 2019 clear the land to prepare for installing more tents at an evacuation site where already 352 people stay after the cyclone Idai hit the region in Mutua, Mozambique. PHOTO | YASUYOSHI CHIBA CHIBA | AFP

NO FOOD

"The people don't know what to do because they lost their houses, they have no food, they don't know where to sleep — this brings sadness and anxiety," said Father Pedro, who conducted a mass in darkness late on Saturday.

Much of the area hit by the cyclone remains disconnected from electricity supplies, complicating rescue efforts at night-fall.

As many as 109,000 people are living in shelters across central Mozambique, many of them located in and around Beira.

Those shelters also "run the risk of infectious disease such as diarrhoeal disease and measles", James McQuen Patterson, UNICEF's health and nutrition chief told AFP.

A man lies on a bamboo mat inside a damaged house in Estoril area of Beira, Mozambique on March 24, 2019. PHOTO | WIKUS DE WET | AFP

LOST EVERYTHING

"Further, as many families have lost everything, some sleeping in the open, the risk of pneumonia, particularly among children increases considerably," he said.

One survivor was six-year-old Elena Joaquin, who clutched a coconut as she sat surrounded by pots and pans at a shelter in Buzi, southwest of Beira, where she had sought refuge along with her parents.

He also highlighted the need to helping people living with HIV/AIDS of to resume treatment as soon as possible in the Sofala, which has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in Mozambique.

But life had slowly begun to return to normal in central Beira where traffic was flowing more than in recent days and business were resuming trade.