At least 34 people have died following “one of the most intense storms ever recorded” in northern Mozambique, the country’s National Institute of Risk and Disaster Management (INGD) has said.
Cyclone Chido made landfall in Mozambique on Sunday, after wreaking havoc in the Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte.
Hundreds are feared dead in Mayotte – a French overseas region – and several people – including more than 200 Red Cross volunteers – are thought to be missing.
The INGD has called the situation in Mozambique “heart-breaking” and warned that the death toll is likely to rise.
More than 34,000 Mozambican families have lost their homes to Chido, which brought winds of around 260km/h (160mph).
Schools, health facilities and fishing boats were also destroyed.
Chido struck northern provinces that are regularly battered by cyclones. The area is also beset by attacks from Islamist militants.
The cyclone made landfall in Cabo Delgado before travelling further inland to Niassa and Nampula, where a three-year-old girl was among the fatalities.
Most of those killed by Chido were hit by falling objects, such as from destroyed brick walls, INGD spokesperson Paulo Tomas said.
Electricity and communications have also been upended – state-owned power company Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM) announced that around 200,000 customers are without power.
In Mayotte, widespread damage to infrastructure – with downed power lines and impassable roads – is severely hindering emergency operations.
Chido was the strongest storm to strike the territory in more than 90 years.
The official death toll on the islands has reached 21, but it is thought that hundreds of people may have died.
“We are talking about the entire area, if not the whole island completely destroyed and washed away. What is really scary is the number of people that are still missing,” Tommaso Della Longa, a spokesperson for the International Federation of Red Cross, told the BBC.
He added that more than 200 Red Cross volunteers are among those feared missing.
A French MP on the island, Estelle Youssouffa, has said she fears tens of thousands of people have died as a result of the cyclone.
She told the BBC that the magnitude of the destruction was hard to comprehend with 90% of the buildings damaged.The complete death toll may never be fully known, Youssouffa added. With thousands missing mostly in areas where undocumented immigrants were living, “by definition it’s a population that is… not on the radar of the administration”, she said.
Many of them “refused to go to the shelters because they feared they could be expelled from the island”, she added.The French authorities have imposed a night-time curfew in Mayotte to prevent looting.
Just last year, Mozambique was left reeling from Cyclone Freddy, one of the longest-lived storms ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere, if not the whole world.
More than 180 in the country were killed, the World Meteorological Organization said.