Battle to soften Idai aftermath continues

BEIRA – The hardships and heartbreak of those affected by Cyclone Idai are becoming more apparent as time wears on and people continue searching for missing loved ones.

Children have been left orphans and many people are starving. Cholera and malaria have also set in.

Aid organisations are working around the clock to help.

To try and describe the immense suffering of the people is beyond words or photographs. The storm which struck the area on March 14 devastated large areas of Mozambique, as well as Zimbabwe and Malawi.

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Many incredible people are trying to assist, such as White River residents, Mercy Air pilot Paul Middleton and his wife Cathy, who is a qualified nurse and midwife.

Paul is constantly flying between Beira and a number of affected towns to get medical supplies and staff to isolated areas.

Cathy is working seven days a week in sweltering heat without a break at the field hospital in Buzi, erected by Samaritan’s Purse after the town’s hospital was damaged in the storm.

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The town is not far from Beira and has only just had its road access re-established, but is still a five-hour drive away, a journey which is accomplished in 11 minutes by Mercy Air’s Kodiak.
The devastating destruction can still be seen from Beira right through to the Zimbabwean border. Many towns are inaccessible by road due to bridges that were washed away.

On Tuesday Lowvelder accompanied Paul to Espungebera. The town is cut off from the Zimbwean and Mozambican side due to bridges having been washed away. As the plane landed, people started gathering. Mercy Air delivered aid while men in military uniforms attempted to keep the crowd at bay.

Themba Maposa said he, his wife and two children have been suffering since the storm. “We have to wait for people to fly in to bring us food. The World Food Program flew in and also brought us supplies, but we worry that nobody comes back to help us.”

The next stop was Beira to fetch medical workers heading for the hospital in Buzi. To get to the Samaritan’s Purse Hospital, one is taken from the dirt runway to a boat where you cross the crocodile- and hippo-invested Buzi River to get to the other side of the town.

At the hospital Lowvelder met a young man named Jose who had brought in his grandmother who was unable to talk. “She was treated at another hospital for cholera, but she is still not well, so we came here. The doctors are helping us.”

In the bed opposite her was a mother with a baby. Ämelia, the translator said, “The baby has malaria, she says the baby got sick when the cyclone hit. Their house was destroyed and they were on a roof for days, they have lost everything. However, the infant is getting better now.”

A mother with malaria and her child at the tent hospital in Buzi.This was sadly not the case for an elderly man who came too late to get help. He died in the men’s ward from cerebral malaria while Lowvelder and Mercy Air were present.

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Cathy said she could still be used there for another three weeks as the need was so great. “This is the planned time frame, after which Samaritan’s Purse intends to hand the field hospital over to the local health authority,” she concluded.

The real time frame, however, could be measured by many in months or years, or even a lifetime.