More than 9,000 people are isolated and without humanitarian assistance in Luabo and Chinde districts, in Zambézia province, central Mozambique, following tropical cyclone Freddy, officials said today.
The delegate from the National Institute for Disaster Management (INGD) in Zambézia province, Hélder da Costa, told public broadcaster Rádio Moçambique that food aid has not been able to reach communities in the districts of Luabo and Chinde.
The roads are cut and the boats are not circulating, due to the flooding of the Zambezi River, explained Costa.
Freddy is already one of the longest-lived cyclones in recent decades, having traveled more than 10,000 kilometers since it formed off northern Australia on February 4 and crossed the entire Indian Ocean into southern Africa.
It hit the east coast of Madagascar for the first time on February 21 and returned to the island on March 5, where it left a trail of 17 dead and 300,000 people affected.
In Mozambique, the cyclone had its first impact on February 24 and made landfall again in mid-March, causing at least 165 deaths, according to the official balance sheet.
The storm killed a total of 605 people in Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar.
Lusa
