Cyclone Eloise Leaves Hundreds Homeless In Mozambique

Maputo, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Jan, 2021 ) :A tropical cyclone that hit central Mozambique this weekend has displaced thousands of people and caused severe flooding in an area battered by two deadly cyclones in 2019, response teams and aid agencies said.

Cyclone Eloise made landfall in the early hours of Saturday, bringing high-speed winds followed by torrential rain over the port city of Beira, capital of Mozambique's Sofala province, and the adjacent Buzi district.

Almost 7,000 people have been displaced and over 5,000 houses destroyed or damaged in the area, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Monday, citing preliminary government figures.

National emergency response teams on Sunday confirmed six fatalities and 12 serious injuries -- numbers expected to rise as the scale of the damage is fully assessed in coming days.

"So many places are flooded already and it's getting worse," said Unicef Mozambique spokesman Daniel Timme, speaking to AFP from Beira.