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mozambique storm 2019

More Than 1,000 Feared Dead In Mozambique Storm

More than a thousand people are feared to have died in a cyclone that smashed into Mozambique last week, while scores have been killed and more than 150 are missing in neighbouring Zimbabwe.

The city of Beira in central Mozambique bore Cyclone Idai’s full wrath on Thursday before the storm barrelled on to neighbouring Zimbabwe, unleashing fierce winds and flash floods and washing away roads and houses.

“For the moment we have registered 84 deaths officially, but when we flew over the area… this morning to understand what’s going on, everything indicates that we could register more than 1,000 deaths,” Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi said in a nationwide address.

“This is a real humanitarian disaster,” he said. “More than 100,000 people are in danger”.

Aerial photographs released by a Christian non-profit organisation, the Mission Aviation Fellowship, showed groups of people stuck on roof tops with flood waters up to window level.

“The scale of damage… (in) Beira is massive and horrifying”, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said.

Ninety percent of the city of some 530,000 people and its surrounding area has been “damaged or destroyed,” it said in a statement.

“The situation is terrible. The scale of devastation is enormous,” the IFRC’s Jamie LeSueur said.

“Almost everything is destroyed. Communication lines have been completely cut and roads have been destroyed. Some affected communities are not accessible.”

A large dam burst on Sunday and cut off the last road to Beira, he said.

Sofala Province governor Alberto Mondlane warned that the “biggest threat we have now, even bigger than the cyclone, is floods because it’s raining more and more”.

‘A perfect storm’

Emma Beaty, coordinator of a grouping of NGOs known as Cosaco, said: “We’ve never had something of this magnitude before in Mozambique”.

“Some dams have broken, and others have reached full capacity, they’ll very soon open the flood gates. It’s a convergence of flooding, cyclones, dams breaking and making a potential wave: everything’s in place so we get a perfect storm.”

Nyusi said the Pungwe and Buzi rivers in central Mozambique “have burst their banks and engulfed entire villages.”

“Communities are isolated and bodies are floating” on the waters, he said.

“Flying roofing sheets beheaded people,” Rajino Paulino recounting the moment the cyclone smashed into Beira.

“We are sleeping rough, we are eating poorly and we don’t have houses anymore,” Paulino said.

Beira international airport was closed because of cyclone damage but later reopened.

Zimbabwe hit

In neighbouring Zimbabwe, Idai left 89 dead and at least 150 more missing, according to a toll compiled by AFP.

It swept away homes and ripped bridges to pieces, leaving destruction that the acting defence minister, Perrance Shiri, said “resembles the aftermath of a full-scale war”.

“There was a lot of destruction both on our facilities and on people,” said Shiri, speaking on television from the affected eastern highlands region.

Some roads were swallowed up by massive sinkholes, while bridges were ripped to pieces by flash floods, according to an AFP photographer.

“This is the worst infrastructural damage we have ever had,” Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Joel Biggie Matiza said.

The eastern district of Chimanimani was worst-hit, with houses and most of the region’s bridges washed away by flash floods.

The most affected areas are not yet accessible, and high winds and dense clouds have hampered military rescue helicopter flights.

Two pupils and a worker at a secondary school in the area were among those killed after a landslide sent a boulder crashing into their dormitory.

Soldiers on Sunday helped rescue the surviving nearly 200 pupils, teachers and staff who had been trapped at the school in Chimanimani.

Joshua Sacco, lawmaker for Chimanimani, told AFP that between “150 to 200 people” are missing.

The majority of them are thought to be government workers, whose housing complex was completely engulfed by raging waters. Their fate was unknown because the area was still unreachable.

“We are very worried because all these houses were just suddenly submerged under water and literally washed away and that is where we have about 147 missing,” he said.

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa cut short a visit to Abu Dhabi, saying on his return home on Monday, “we are deeply grieved as a nation”.

His government has come under fire for failing to evacuate people in time

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Lagos building collapse: 50 children rescued from debris as LASEMA confirms incident

Lagos building collapse: 50 children rescued from debris as LASEMA confirms incident

Authorities have rescued at least 50 children so far from a three-storeyed building which collapsed in the Itafaji area of Lagos Island.

Emergency rescue agencies such as the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), as well as security personnel are currently on ground at the scene of the incident.

The police, army and National Security and Civil Defence Force, NSCDC, are also making contributions with rescue operations.

The number of casualties is, however, yet to be determined.

The building, situated at Massey Street at the Adeniji Adele area of Lagos Island caved in at about 9:45 am on Wednesday.

Speaking to AKB on the development, Adebayo Kehinde of the LASEMA Public Affairs Unit, said, “The incident occurred at about 10.30 am today regarding a three-storyed building that collapsed at the above address.

“The search and rescue operation is presently ongoing with so many victims rescued alive from the collapsed building through combined efforts of LASEMA and other emergency responders such as the Lagos State Ambulance Service, Lagos State Fire Service, Lagos State Building Control Agency, Federal Fire Service. Others include National Emergency Management Agency, Nigeria Police Force, Rapid Response Squad, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps. Nigeria Red Cross Society, Lagos State Neighborhood and Safety Corps.

“The exercise is being coordinated by the General Manager Lagos State Emergency Management Agency Mr Adesina Tiamiyu with the deployment of heavy and light rescue equipment from LASEMA and its stakeholders.”

Supplementary governorship elections: PDP tells INEC what to do

Supplementary governorship elections: PDP tells INEC what to do

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo, on Wednesday, called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct supplementary elections in two wards in Esan North East Local Government Area.

This was contained in a statement signed by the chairman of the commission’s information and voter education committee, Festus Okoye, on Tuesday.

Mr Chris Nehikhare, Edo State Publicity Secretary of the party, told newsmen in Benin, that the call became imperative in view of the reported disruption of electoral processes in the wards during the March 9, Governorship and State House of Assembly Elections, NAN reports.

Nehikhare listed the areas as ward 8, unit 6, Attani, and ward 10, unit 9, Ebhoyi, both in Esan North East Constituency II.

He alleged that there were reported cases of suspected APC members’ disruption of the exercise during collation of ballot papers.

According to him in ward 8, unit 9, the exercise was disrupted when counting was ongoing and the PDP candidate, Mr Igbas Ezehi, was in clear lead.

He said that it was because of the incident that INEC declared the election held at the polling units to be inclusive.

He also claimed that in Ward 10, Unit 9, it was reported that a former council boss in the area and a staunch member of the APC, led some suspected thugs to disrupt the electoral process during collation.

He said it was, therefore surprising to hear INEC eventually declaring the APC candidate winner in the constituency.

He noted that the total number of registered voters in both wards where the elections were inconclusive was 2,326, whereas, the margin between the PDP candidate and the APC candidate who INEC declared as the winner was only 37.

The Publicity Secretary said that this action was contrary to the provisions of Section 26, subsection 1 and 3 of the Electoral Act; and the guidelines issued by INEC for the 2019 elections.

He, therefore, urged INEC not to apply double standards in the case of the Esan North East constituency II, by promptly conducting supplementary elections in both Attani and Ebhoyi wards.

When contacted by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), however, Dr Emmanuel Alex-Hart, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the State, said that the candidate and the party should go to either the conventional court or tribunal if they felt aggrieved.

Alex-Hart said: “If the candidate is sure of what he is saying and could not put up a challenge, when his opponent was been declared as winner, he should go to court.

“I have just finished an election, and I think the conventional courts and tribunal are there for such grievances.’’