Dozens of people have died as a result of the flooding and high winds, which have destroyed homes and ripped roofs from concrete buildings. Cyclone Idai made landfall on Thursday with winds of up to 177 km/h (106 mph), but aid teams only reached Beira on Sunday.

It has killed at least 150 people across southern Africa. In Mozambique, people have had to be rescued from trees, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Society (IFRC) assessment team, Jamie LeSeur, told the BBC. In neighbouring Zimbabwe, more than 80 people have died in the east and south, information ministry head Nick Mangwana told Reuters news agency.

This includes two pupils from the St Charles Lwanga boarding school in the district of Chimanimani, who died after their dormitory was hit when rocks swept down a mountain. Malawi has also been badly hit. The flooding there, caused by the rains before the cyclone made landfall, led to at least 122 deaths, Reliefweb reports.(BBC)…[+]