Aid agencies struggle to rescue Mozambique cyclone victims
Beira, Mar 21: Aid workers raced on Wednesday to help survivors and meet spiralling humanitarian needs in three southern African countries battered by the region's worst storm in years.
Five days after tropical cyclone Idai cut a swathe through Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, the confirmed death toll stood at more than 300 and hundreds of thousands of lives were at risk, officials said.
Mozambique, where the monster storm made landfall early last Friday, is reeling.
"We've thousands of people ... in roofs and trees waiting for rescue," Caroline Haga, spokeswoman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said.
"We are running out of time. People have been waiting for rescue for more than three days now," she told AFP in the storm-ravaged coastal city of Beira.
She added: "Unfortunately, we can't pick up all the people, so our priority are children, pregnant women, injured people." Survivor Aunicia Jose, 24, speaking in the district of Buzi near Beira, said, "The situation is very bad, we haven't eaten since Thursday, until today.
"We are sleeping outside, everything is destroyed, our houses are destroyed, everything is gone, we have recovered nothing." World Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman Deborah Nguyen told AFP in Beira that "the priority today is to rush to rescue people trapped in the flooded areas" as much as organising temporary shelter for those rescued.
"The situation has not really improved. In Buzi, the villages are still under water but the good news is that there are many rescue teams working all day long.
"Relief operations are progressing, but there is still a lot of work." The UN said it was "one of the worst natural disasters in southern Africa", and launched an international appeal for relief funds, having earlier said it was aiming to help some 600,000 people in coming weeks.
"We do not yet know enough about the level of destruction to give an accurate estimate of the amount of this call for funds, but it will be important," spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters at UN headquarters in New York.
Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi said on Tuesday that 202 people had died, according to the latest toll, and nearly 350,000 people were at risk.
In Zimbabwe, the death toll stood at 100 on Wednesday but was expected to surge to 300, while up to 15,000 people are estimated to have been hit by the storm.
In Malawi, nearly a million people have been affected and more than 80,000 forced from their homes, according to the UN.
Aid agencies said they were prepared for the cyclone which made landfall early Friday, but not for the massive floods that followed.
Mozambique bore the brunt from rivers that flow downstream from its neighbours.
Beira airport which was partially damaged by the storm and temporarily shut, had re-opened to become the relief operations hub but is proving not large enough.
Air force personnel from Mozambique and South Africa have been drafted in to fly rescue missions and distribute aid which can only be airlifted as roads out of Beira have been destroyed.
A government worker who asked not be identified spoke from a roadside after he was rescued by boat in Nhamatanda, some 60 kilometres (40 miles) northwest of Beira, saying "this is the first time our generation has seen something like this".
Climate expert John Mutter, a professor at the Earth Institute at New York's Columbia University, said the heavy toll was partly explained by the infrequency of such weather events in southern Africa.
"Mozambique and Zimbabwe are essentially unprepared. They both have weak governance that, honestly, focuses on many more pressing things (as they would see it). And because cyclones are so rare in this part of the world, so preparedness is minimal," Mutter told AFP.
In Zimbabwe, at least 217 people are listed as missing in Chimanimani in Manicaland, an eastern province which borders Mozambique.
The district remains cut off after roads were swallowed by massive sinkholes and bridges were ripped to pieces by flash floods -- a landscape that Defence Minister Perrance Shiri said "resembles the aftermath of a full-scale war".
Families were using hoes to dig through mounds of soil in search of their missing relatives, an AFP correspondent saw.
After visiting some of the victims in Chimanimani, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa said "a tragedy has visited us".
"The last place we visited, where three main rivers merge, an entire village was washed away. I think those are the bodies which are now being found in Mozambique," he said.
The three countries are some of the poorest in the region and depend heavily on foreign aid.
In Rome, Pope Francis expressed "my pain and my closeness" for those caught up in the disaster.
"I entrust the many victims and their families to the mercy of God and I implore comfort and support for those affected by this calamity," he said, addressing thousands of pilgrims in St Peter's Square.
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Canada is already examining tariffs on certain US items following Trump's tariff threat
Toronto (AP/PTI): Canada is already examining possible retaliatory tariffs on certain items from the United States should President-elect Donald Trump follow through on his threat to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian products, a senior official has said.
Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico if the countries don't stop what he called the flow of drugs and migrants across southern and northern borders. He said he would impose a 25 per cent tax on all products entering the U.S. from Canada and Mexico as one of his first executive orders.
But Trump posted Wednesday evening on Truth Social that he had a "wonderful conversation" with new Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and she "agreed to stop Migration through Mexico".
"Mexico will stop people from going to our Southern Border, effective immediately. THIS WILL GO A LONG WAY TOWARD STOPPING THE ILLEGAL INVASION OF THE USA. Thank you!!!" Trump posted.
It was unclear what impact the conversation will have on Trump's plan to impose tariffs.
In Canada, a government official said on Wednesday that Canada is preparing for every eventuality and has started thinking about what items to target with tariffs in retaliation. The official stressed no decision has been made. The person spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak publicly.
When Trump imposed higher tariffs during his first term in office, other countries responded with retaliatory tariffs of their own. Canada, for instance, announced billions of new duties in 2018 against the US in a tit-for-tat response to new taxes on Canadian steel and aluminum.
Many of the US products were chosen for their political rather than economic impact. For example, Canada imports USD 3 million worth of yogurt from the US annually and most comes from one plant in Wisconsin, home state of then-House Speaker Paul Ryan. That product was hit with a 10 per cent duty.
Another product on the list was whiskey, which comes from Tennessee and Kentucky, the latter of which is the home state of then-Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell.
Trump made the threat Monday while railing against an influx of illegal migrants, even though the numbers at Canadian border pale in comparison to the southern border.
The US Border Patrol made 56,530 arrests at the Mexican border in October alone — and 23,721 arrests at the Canadian one between October 2023 and September 2024.
Canadian officials say lumping Canada in with Mexico is unfair but say they are ready to make new investments in border security and work with the Trump administration to lower the numbers from Canada. The Canadians are also worried about a influx north of migrants if Trump follows through with his plan for mass deportations.
Trump also railed about fentanyl from Mexico and Canada, even though seizures from the Canadian border pale in comparison to the Mexican border. US customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border.
Canadian officials argue their country is not the problem and that tariffs will have severe implications for both countries.
Canada is the top export destination for 36 US states. Nearly USD 3.6 billion Canadian (USD 2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day. About 60 per cent of US crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85 per cent of US electricity imports are from Canada. Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the US and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau held a emergency virtual meeting on Wednesday with the leaders of Canada's provinces. He stressed they need to present a united front.
"I don't want to minimize for a moment the gravity of the challenge we now face," Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said. "Now is really a moment for us not to squabble amongst ourselves."
The provincial premiers want Trudeau to negotiate a bilateral trade deal with the United States that excludes Mexico.
Sheinbaum, Mexico's president, said earlier Wednesday that her administration is already working up a list of possible retaliatory tariffs "if the situation comes to that."
She later said she talked to Trump and had "an excellent conversation".
