The Latest: Cyclone death toll in Mozambique more than 200
By Associated Press
Mar 19, 2019 4:08 PM CDT
A woman makes her way to a school building being used as an emergency shelter for some 300 local people who are unable to return to their homes following cyclone force winds and heavy rain in the coastal city of Beira, Mozambique, Sunday March 17, 2019. More than 1,000 people are feared dead in Mozambique...   (Associated Press)

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The Latest on tropical cyclone (all times local):

11:05 p.m.

Mozambique's president says more than 200 people are confirmed dead in his country alone after a tropical cyclone roared ashore in the southern African nation over the weekend.

President Filipe Nyusi announced the death toll while meeting with his ministers in the largely destroyed city of Beira, the Portuguese news agency Lusa reported late Tuesday.

The president also announced three days of national mourning and said his government would declare a national emergency.

Hundreds of thousands of people remain at risk as rivers burst their banks, torrential rains continue and flood waters rise, stranding some people on rooftops and in trees.

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10:45 a.m.

Hundreds are dead, many more missing and thousands at risk from massive flooding in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe caused by Cyclone Idai and persistent rains.

International aid agencies and government officials are scrambling Tuesday to rescue families trapped by the floodwaters from rivers that have burst their banks and are still rising.

Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi said the death toll could go as high as 1,000 from the cyclone and flooding. Although emergency workers caution they do not know if the fatalities will reach that estimate, they say this is the most destructive flooding in 20 years.

Hardest hit by the cyclone is Mozambique's Beira port, a city of 500,000, where thousands of homes have been destroyed. Flooding waters have inundated large areas of rural Mozambique and its neighboring countries.

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