Cyclone-ravaged Mozambique faces a “second disaster” from cholera and other diseases, officials have warned, as the United Nations launched an urgent aid appeal for an estimated 1.8 million people affected by storm winds and flash floods.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, described Cyclone Idai which slammed into Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi on March 14 as “one of theworst weather-related catastrophes in the history of Africa”.
“We fear that whole villages have been washed away in places we have yet to reach,” he said, raising the spectre of hunger, saying the storm had inundated Mozambique’s breadbasket on the eve of harvest.