Over 1,000 feared dead after Cyclone Idai slams into Mozambique

Mozambique's president says more than 1,000 people are feared dead four days after a cyclone slammed into the country, submerging entire villages and leaving bodies floating in the floodwaters.

Cyclone Idai, Cyclone Idai death toll, Cyclone Idai mozambique — People walk through debris on the streets of the city of Beira, Sofala Province, Mozambique, after Cyclone Idai made land fall. (Photo via AP)

More than 1,000 people were feared dead in Mozambique four days after a cyclone slammed into the country, submerging entire villages and leaving bodies floating in the floodwaters, the nation’s president said.

“It is a real disaster of great proportions,” 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 struck Beira, an Indian Ocean port city of a half-million people, late 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.