Maputo - The UN made an urgent appeal yesterday for more helicopters and aircraft to help flood victims in Mozambique as rescuers scrambled to pluck stranded villagers from trees, rooftops and power pylons.
"We need more helicopters and light aircraft. Unless these come we shall lose many, many lives here," Ms Michele Quintaglie of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said.
The floods have hit southern Africa, leaving a trail of death and destruction in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Swaziland and South Africa as well as Mozambique. Zimbabwe police said 33 bodies had been recovered yesterday from the Mudzi river after a bus was swept away and submerged, bringing the total flood death toll to 62. "We suspect there could be more bodies trapped inside the bus. We also believe bodies could have been swept downstream to Mozambique," a police spokesman said.
Aid workers said heavy rains in neighbouring South Africa and Zimbabwe had raised the Limpopo river's level to more than five metres above normal during the night, inundating Chokwe town and nearby villages and farms.