Mozambique’s land and environment minister Celso Correia said on Monday the number of people in makeshift camps after a powerful cyclone in Mozambique has risen by 18,000 to 128,000 but the death toll remains roughly unchanged at 447. “The loss of lives remains the same as yesterday,” Correia said. “The number of people saved in INGC (National Institute of Disaster Management) camps has increased to 128,000,” Correia told reporters at a briefing. Cyclone Idai lashed the Mozambican port city of Beira with winds of up to 170 kph (105 mph), then moved inland to Zimbabwe and Malawi, flattening buildings and killing at least 656 people across the three countries. Combined death toll at 312, US army could deploy The situation in the port city of Beira in Mozambique was “boiling” as residents suffered shortages of food, water and other essentials one week after a devastating cyclone, the head of a South African rescue operation said on Friday. Cyclone Idai battered Beira, a low-lying city of 500,000 residents, with strong winds and torrential rains last week, before moving inland to neighbouring Zimbabwe and Malawi. In Mozambique, 242 were killed in the storm and resulting floods, according to the official death toll, although this is expected to rise. In Malawi, around 56 were killed while Zimbabwe has recorded 142 deaths. Around 15,000 people were still missing in Mozambique, Land and Environment Minister Celso Correia said late on Thursday. The government is expected to give a briefing on Friday morning to update the number of people missing and dead. Briefing his team late on Thursday night, Connor Hartnady, rescue operations task force leader for Rescue South Africa, said Beira residents were becoming fed up with shortages. “There have been three security incidents today, all food related,” he told his team, without giving further details. Cartnady also said a group of 60 people had been discovered trapped by flood water in an area north of Beira during a reconnaissance flight. Rescue teams and the government were deciding how best to help them, he said, either by airlifting them to safety or dropping supplies. The storm’s torrential rains caused the Buzi and Pungwe rivers, whose mouths are in the Beira area, to burst their banks. Roads into Beira were cut off by the storm, and most of the city remains without power. The Red Cross has estimated 90 percent of the city was damaged or destroyed in the storm. Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Information said at least 30 students, two headmasters and a teacher from three schools were missing in the eastern region of the country. In the capital Harare there were shortages of diesel, leading to long queues following reports earlier this week that a control room for the pipeline in Beira that transports fuel to Zimbabwe had been damaged. REUTERS Combined death toll at 312, US army could deploy Rescue workers plucked more survivors from trees and roofs to safety on Thursday, a week after a cyclone ripped through southern Africa and triggered devastating floods that have killed hundreds of people and displaced hundreds of thousands. The death toll in Mozambique has risen to 217 and around 15,000 people, many of them very ill, still need to be rescued, Land and Environment Minister Celso Correia said, though rescue workers continue to find bodies and the toll could rise sharply. “Our biggest fight is against the clock,” Correia told a news conference, adding that 3,000 had so far been rescued. In neighbouring Zimbabwe, the death toll jumped to 139. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), which is coordinating food drops, said 200,000 Zimbabweans would need urgent food aid for three months. In Malawi 56 people were confirmed dead. “This is a catastrophe… Cyclone Idai has destroyed so much in an instance and it will take years for people to recover what they have lost,” said Edgar Jone, country director in Mozambique for the Christian aid charity Tearfund. U.S. military teams could join the cyclone rescue effort in Mozambique, a representative of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) said, according to the minutes of a humanitarian meeting published on Thursday. “The Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) will be mobilized. A military aircraft is in Maputo. The US Embassy is requesting approval to mobilize military teams to support rescue operations,” the minutes of Wednesday’s meeting showed, citing a USAID representative. REUTERS Mozambique deaths pass 200, rescue continues Mozambique’s Minister of Land and Environment has given updated figures arising from the deadly cyclone Idai that ravaged the southern African country late last week. Deaths = 200 Rescued = 3,000 Stranded = 15,000 FULL STORY: Mozambique minister gives official updates Desperate rescue efforts Aid agencies racing against time to rescue people trapped by Cyclone Idai in Mozambique changed tact on Wednesday, saying it was now ‘ a matter of life and death’. Rescuers dropped high-energy biscuits, water purification tablets and other supplies to people surrounded by nothing but water and reddish-brown mud on Wednesday, Caroline Haga, an official with the International Federation of the Red Cross said. Travis Trower, principal of Rescue South Africa, said many people remained trapped on islands of land around Beira but that the “acute rescue phase” – pulling people from rooftops and trees – was largely complete. Trower described scenes where mothers passed him their children from trees and crowds of people swarmed around rescue helicopters when they were able to land. On Tuesday, rescuers saved 167 people around Beira with the help of South African Air Force helicopters. Aid groups have struggled to reach survivors trapped in more remote areas of Mozambique where some villages are submerged. The United Nations children’s fund, UNICEF, estimated that 260,000 children were at risk from the devastation, and the World Food Programme said it was trying to reach 500,000 people with immediate food assistance. The EU, Britain and United Arab Emirates have donated millions of dollars of aid each to Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe for emergency shelters, hygiene, sanitation and healthcare. Portugal is sending 35 soldiers and a team from the country’s National Republican Guard, its foreign minister said. U.S. energy firm ExxonMobil, which is working on developing giant gas deposits off northern Mozambique, said it would donate $300,000 to relief efforts. Over 200 dead in Mozambique after Cyclone Idai, millions hit The number of people killed in a powerful cyclone and flooding in Mozambique has risen above 200, more than doubling the country’s death toll from a storm that could rank as one of the worst weather-related disasters in the southern hemisphere. Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi said in a televised statement following a cabinet meeting on the disaster on Tuesday that the death toll after Cylone Idai now stood at more than 200, up from 84.