Over 1000 Feared Dead as Cyclone Idai Hits South African Nations

More than a 1,000 people are feared dead after a devastating cyclone (Idai) ripped through Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi.

Already more than 350 people have been confirmed dead, hundreds still missing and more than a million still at risk.

On Tuesday, President Filipe Nyusi of Mozambique said that more than 200 people have been confirmed dead in his country. He said that his country might have lost more than 1,000 people as “bodies are still floating and have not been retrieved.”

Aid workers are still struggling to rescue victims who managed to cling on trees and rooftops in one that has been described as the worst disaster to have ever hit the southern hemisphere.

According to the United Nations, more than 2.6 million people have been affected and are in urgent need of food, medication, and other amenities.

The Cyclone Idai formed a running mountain of water, at least 20 meters high and moving at 170 kilometers per hour that literary raced through towns, sweeping people and buildings along the way.

Satellite images show at least 1.7 million people being on the path of the cyclone in Mozambique and another 920,000 in Malawi. The cyclone has left roads ripped apart, rivers have broken their banks, buildings flattened and survivors with no way to be reached.

Ignored By Others?

Do African countries care about each other? Which African country apart from South Africa has expressed sympathy with the affected countries and even offered to send aid? What is more, almost all African media houses (using Kenya as an example) seem to have given the tragedy a total blackout.

African journalists seem to have forgotten a simple journalistic rule of “localization”. For instance, why would one air news about a shooting of 40 people all the way from New Zealand when more than 1,000 people are dead closer home in Africa?

This is not the first African tragedy to be ignored. Just recently, more than people died in Tanzania following a ferry accident. The story died as soon as it came out.