Death Toll From Cyclone Surpasses 500 in Southern Africa

Photo taken from Copernicus Sentinel-1 and provided by the European Space Agency, ESA, shows the extent of flooding, depicted in red, on March 19, 2019. ESA via AP

CHIMANIMANI, Zimbabwe—A week after Cyclone Idai lashed southern Africa, flooding still raged on March 21, as torrential rains caused a dam to overflow in Zimbabwe, threatening riverside populations. The confirmed death toll in Zimbabwe, neighboring Mozambique and Malawi surpassed 500, with hundreds more feared dead in towns and villages that were completely submerged.

Aid agencies and several governments continued to step up their deployments, with helicopters in short supply for hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the cyclone.