Cyclone Dineo Wreaks Havoc On Mozambique

Tropical cyclone Dineo, which hit Mozambique earlier this week, destroyed 20 thousand houses and left 130 thousand people displaced, the country's national emergency operations center said yesterday, according to News 24 in neighboring South Africa. Nine people were also reportedly killed, a UN official revealed.

The cyclone made landfall on Wednesday night, with the brunt of it affecting the country's Inhambane province, bringing with it winds of up to 170 km per hour and overnight rainfall of between 100mm and 200mm.

The emergency operations center also reported that 105 schools, 49 hospitals, and 52 other public buildings had also been destroyed.

According to the UN resident coordinator for Mozambique, several towns and villages were without electricity and more than 650 thousand people had been affected by the cyclone.

After making landfall, the cyclone began to lose some of its strength and has since been degraded to a tropical storm. Even so, the South African Weather Service still warned of intense rain and winds of almost 100 km per hour in the eastern parts of the country near to Mozambique. Heavy rains are expected to continue over the course of the weekend and the South African Weather Service has warned that flooding may leave certain areas cut off from the rest of the country. - Town