CNN reports:

“Upside down” are the only words Manush Albert Alben has to describe life after the powerful Cyclone Idai.

Nearly two weeks since the powerful cyclone destroyed most of the city of Beira, Mozambique, it is a long way from normal. “There’s no money, no groceries,” Alben, a fisherman, said while sitting in his wooden pirogue on a local beach. “We are suffering but trying to hold on.”

Known for its busy port and views of the Indian Ocean, the 19th-century city used to be the fourth largest in the country. Now Beira will go down in history as being “90% wiped out” by global warming, said Graça Machel, a former Mozambican freedom fighter, politician and deputy chair of The Elders, who spoke to CNN on the phone after visiting the city.

“This is one of the poorest places in the world, which is paying the price of climate change provoked mostly, not only but mostly, by the developed world,” the 73-year-old added.

Hundreds of square miles are covered by water, flooding an area so vast it can be seen from space. Only when the water recedes completely, says Machel, will Mozambique be able to count the bodies.

Cyclone Idai is only the latest extreme weather event to blight the region, affecting more than half a million people and filling humanitarian camps with tens of thousands. [Continue reading…]