MAPUTO 21 Mar (ANA) - Some 15,000 people still need to be rescued from the devastation caused by Cyclone Idai, Mozambique officials say.

 

The cyclone victims there are stranded by catastrophic flooding and are clinging to roofs or stuck in trees, charities say.

 

In the port city of Beira, aid workers say there is only two to three days of clean water left.

 

Some 300 people are confirmed dead in Mozambique and Zimbabwe, but the toll is expected to rise.

 

With shortages of food and clean drinking water the threat of disease is growing, medical agencies warn.

 

The powerful cyclone swept in to Beira last Thursday, with winds of more than 177km/h (106 mph). It left a trail of devastation as it moved inland across Zimbabwe and Malawi.

 

"The first thing you see when you arrive is destruction and a lot of water," said Get Verdonck, an emergency co-ordinator with the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

 

"People are using well water with no chlorination, and that water is unlikely to be clean... pneumonia and other respiratory diseases are going to be a problem," he told Reuters from Beira.(ANA)

FA/ANA/21 March 2019--------