Cyclone Chido death toll rises to 94 in Mozambique

MAPUTO — Cyclone Chido killed at least 94 people in Mozambique in its deadly rampage through the Indian Ocean last week, the country's disaster management agency said Sunday, raising a previous death toll of 76.

The cyclone, which devastated the French island territory of Mayotte before hitting the African mainland, also destroyed 110,000 homes in Mozambique, officials said.

After making landfall the storm ravaged the northern province of Cabo Delgado with gusts of around 260 kilometres per hour, pelting it with 250 millimetres of rain in a day.

That part of northern Mozambique is both regularly ravaged by tropical storms and wrestling with unrest from a long-running Islamist insurgency.

In the hard-hit Mecufi district a mosque had its roof stripped by the gale, as seen in images taken by UNICEF.

The ruling Frelimo party's presidential candidate Daniel Chapo , whose win at the ballot box in October has been denounced by the opposition as fraudulent, paid a visit to the affected areas on Sunday.

For the time being, Mozambique remains the country with the heaviest death toll.

Seven days after the cyclone hit Mayotte, 35 people were reported dead and some 2,500 injured on that archipelago by the French Interior Ministry.

But it is feared the toll may rise sharply given the scores of undocumented migrants from the nearby Comoros islands, which tend to inhabit Mayotte's many shantytowns flattened by the storm.

After sweeping over Mozambique, the cyclone moved into Malawi.

Despite losing intensity it killed 13 people and injured nearly 30 there, according to the Malawian disaster management agency.