As many as “300 to 400” bodies line the banks of a road out of the city of Beira in Mozambique, according to an eyewitness account, and flood waters have formed an inland ocean that is visible from outer space.
The harrowing scene, described by Zimbabwean Graham Taylor, suggests that the human toll of Cyclone Idai is likely to far exceed official estimates. It follows reports from aid agencies on the ground detailing how entire villages and towns have been completely flooded in the wake of last Thursday’s high-end Category 2 storm.
Taylor said the bodies were located on a 6 kilometer (3.7 mile) track of highway, where flood waters had created an inland ocean, submerging entire villages around a “densely populated” sugar-cane plantation. The area is a mere fraction of the land in the southeast African nation left flooded after two major rivers burst their banks in the days following the storm.
Flooding is so extreme in Buzi, central Mozambique, that the water can be seen in satellite images from outer space. The area is home to some 200,000 people
On Friday 700 survivors from Buzi gathered at the Escola Secundaria Samora Machel school in Beira after they were rescued.
More than one week on from the storm’s initial impact, the United Nations has confirmed 242 dead in Mozambique, with 259 lives lost in Zimbabwe and 56 in Malawi.
But information has been slow to emerge and communication with affected areas remains limited. On Monday, Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi said that “everything indicates that we can have a record of more than 1,000 dead” — a figure that some experts now believe could be conservative.
The morgue at the Hospital Central da Beira hospital is now full, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
On Friday morning the organization set up a new base in Chimoio, near the border with Zimbabwe, and the forensics team said identifying and burying bodies is now a major challenge.
About 1.7 million people are affected by Cyclone Idai in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, according to UNICEF.
“The situation on the ground remains critical,” said Christophe Boulierac, UNICEF spokesperson in Geneva, describing the scene in Beira.”There is no electricity or running water.”
Thousands of people are congregating in informal camps in desperate conditions, according to UNICEF representative Marco Luigi Corsi, who has traveled to affected areas.
Taylor, 62, who has lived in Mozambique for 10 years, became stranded on Saturday on the highway to Zimbabwe from Beira, where Cyclone Idai made landfall, after flood waters one-meter high blocked the road.
At 3 a.m. on Monday, he abandoned his car and joined the streams of people wading in the pitch black through the waters along the raised highway.
In the dark, he could hear people “sobbing and crying.”
As dawn broke, those sobs began to make sense as a “terrible sight” emerged, Taylor said.
“Dead bodies had floated up (and the) current of the flood water had washed the bodies up against the road,” said Taylor. “The road had subsided about 10 inches (25.5 centimeters). So these bodies had been washed up against the main highway.”
Taylor said the smell of bodies and livestock was palpable
Hundreds of others were also attempting to make the congested seven-hour walk from the village of Lamego — about 90 kilometers (56 miles) inland from Beira — to Nhamatanda, on higher ground. In places where the current of the flood waters was strong, about 50 people joined hands to make a human chain, said Taylor.
“I’m 6 foot 2 inches (187 centimeters), but the force of water at knee level was powerful,” Taylor said. “You had to pay attention and concentrate where you put your feet.”
Taylor said he saw an elderly woman carry her husband on her back.
On the road out of Beira, he said “the entire area, as far as I could see, was one lake of floodwater,” adding that groups of up to 10 people had climbed eucalyptus, cashew and mango trees waiting to be rescued.
But he also saw people heading back towards the flood zone.
“They said they couldn’t account for their families and wouldn’t leave until they could do,” he said.
Nearby, another family had abandoned searching for their 16-year-old missing son, who they suspect is buried under the mud.
Efforts to bring aid to those affected by Cyclone Idai are under way in Zimbabwe. President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government is airlifting food to some of the areas where people are still trapped.
Mnangagwa has declared March 23 and 24 national days of mourning.
“I want some shelter, I have none,” said one Chimanimani resident. “I have no blankets. No pots. My plates, sofas were all destroyed … I do not know if I will survive or not.”
