/https%3A%2F%2Farc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-jerseyeveningpost-mna.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2FCISACMFTJNEIZF3ZQZOFKA4WQ4.jpg "Cyclone: More Deaths Reported In Mozambique")
The official death toll from Cyclone Idai, which tore through southern Africa more than a week ago, has risen to an unprecedented figure. The number of people declared dead in Mozambique rose from 242 to 417, Land and Environment Minister Celso Correia said.
The new figure puts the overall death toll at about 700 people across Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi even as the toll is expected to rise further.
The storm has killed at least 259 people in Zimbabwe, while in Malawi 56 people died when heavy rains hit ahead of the cyclone.
Painfully, the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the Buzi and Zambezi rivers were at risk of breaking their banks again.
"We're going to have to wait until the flood waters recede until we know the full expanse of the toll on the people of Mozambique," OCHA co-ordinator Sebastian Rhodes Stampa said. Thousands remain trapped by the floodwaters, and many of the Mozambican government's relief centers have only just started receiving food supplies.
Some 1.7 million people are said to be affected across southern Africa, with no electricity or running water in areas where homes have been swept away and roads destroyed by the floods.
Nearly 90,000 Mozambicans are thought to be sheltering in temporary sites, while thousands of others are still stranded in floodwaters, AFP news agency reported.
"We are living an unprecedented natural disaster. A disaster that only matches major disasters," Mr Correia said. "Unfortunately, no-one in the region and in the world could predict a disaster of this size."
