At least 200 people have been confirmed dead in Malawi after tropical storm Freddy ripped through southern Africa for the second time in a month.
Terrifying amounts of brown water have cascaded through neighbourhoods, sweeping away homes.
Malawi’s commercial hub, Blantyre, has recorded most of the deaths, 158, including dozens of children. The government has declared a state of disaster in 10 southern districts that have been hardest-hit by the storm. Rescue workers are overwhelmed, and are using shovels to try to find survivors buried in mud.
“We have rivers overflowing, we have people being carried away by running waters, we have buildings collapsing,” police spokesman Peter Kalaya told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
Recalling how he helped rescue a child, Blantyre resident Aaron Ntambo said, “The child was stuck up to her head in the mud. She was crying for help. Even though the water was very strong, we managed to cross and rescue her. It was very difficult but we managed to pull her out.”
Officials at the main referral hospital in the city said they could not cope with the sheer number of bodies that they were receiving.
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders said that more than 40 children were pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
Officials appealed to bereaved families to collect the corpses for burial as the hospital’s mortuary was running out of space.
The government’s disaster relief agency said the death toll had risen from 99 on Monday to 190, while about 584 people were injured and 37 were still missing.
More than 20,00 people have been displaced, it added.
The death toll is expected to rise as some areas remain cut off because of relentless rain and fierce wind.
The storm has also crippled Malawi’s power supply, with most parts of the country experiencing prolonged blackouts.
The national electricity company said it was unable to get its hydro-power plant working as it had been filled with debris.
Densely-populated poorer communities, living in brick and mud houses, have been hardest-hit.
Some of these houses have crumbled into flood waters, while others have been entirely swept away.
