Six days after Cyclone Idai, rescuers scramble to save hundreds stranded by floodwaters amid fears death toll will rise.
Rescue workers in Mozambique are racing against time to save hundreds of people clinging onto roofs and trees around the devastated city of Beira.
These efforts come days after a powerful cyclone triggered flash floods, submerging entire villages and wiping out communities across southeastern Africa.
Aid workers on Wednesday spoke of women trapped in trees “throwing their babies” onto rescue boats. They talked of plucking people from head-deep water, only to strand them in patches of land where the water reached their ankles.
Cyclone Idai hit Beira with winds of up to 170 kilometres per hour last Thursday, then moved inland to Zimbabwe and Malawi, killing hundreds and putting the lives of millions at risk.
United Nations officials say this could be the worst ever weather-related disaster to have struck the southern hemisphere.
Authorities say at least 217 people have died in Mozambique, 98 in Zimbabwe and 56 in Malawi, but the death toll is likely to rise as rescuers continue to find bodies.
Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi, who has declared a national emergency and three days of mourning starting on Wednesday, has warned that the eventual number of those killed in the cyclone and flooding could rise to more than 1,000.
According to earlier estimates by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 90 percent of Beira and its surrounding areas appear to be “completely destroyed”.
Josias Elias, found clinging to a tree almost submerged in water, said his entire village near Beira was flooded.
“There’s no more reason to go back. All of our houses have been destroyed,” he told Al Jazeera.
On Tuesday, rescuers saved 167 people around Beira with the help of South African Air Force helicopters.
On Thursday, Mozambique’s minister of land and environment said 3,000 people have been saved across the country, while 15,000 still needed to be rescued.
“The devastation is vast. As far as the eye can see, it’s just water, you can’t see any land,” Travis Trower, of the group Rescue South Africa, told Al Jazeera in Beira.
“Paddling through water, and seeing [survivors] in the trees was absolutely devastating.”
Recounting one rescue operation in the area on Friday, he said: “The women were throwing their babies from the trees into our paddle boats. We only managed to get only 20 children before we had to call off the operation.
“Unfortunately, when we went back to that place in the morning, those people were no longer there.”
