As a follow on to the previous blog entry:
Cyclone Idai made landfall in mid-March bringing heavy rain and winds of 170kph.
From this next comparative map you can see that the cyclone was almost the size of the UK.
Flooding was extensive and at one point an inland sea of 2000sq km had formed just inland from Beira.
In the middle of the next photo you can just see the town of Buzi emerging from the floods in one of the worst affected areas.
People there were left with few options for survival...
..and flying overhead we found people stranded on roofs.
Apparently there were crocodiles swimming up and down the streets!
In the more rural areas people had no choice but to climb trees and many
were lost as they couldn't hang on for more than a few days.
As the initial search and rescue phase closed, focus then turned to
relief. Our helicopters were able to land on the first bits of land to
dry out to assess the situation.
They were able to bring in the first food and supplies.
We met a team from Samaritan's Purse, an organisation headed up by Billy
Graham's brother, Franklin Graham, to offer support in times of
disaster. We agreed to help them by flying doctors, nurses and medical
supplies to a field hospital they had set up in Buzi. For us it was a 13
minute flight but when the road was eventually cleared it was still a
4-5 hr drive.
When they heard that Cathy, one of our staff members was a nurse and midwife they asked if she
would join them. On our next trip up Paul, her husband, dropped Cathy off at the newly
cleared (and drying) Buzi airstrip.
 |
| The hospital is the white tents |
We had to take a dodgy boat across the river.
..and walk to the hospital past houses showing a high water mark 2 meters up all the houses.
At the hospital Cathy was straight to work.
Next door the original hospital's maternity unit had spread all the records out to dry.
Paul then left and spent the rest of the week flying nutritional food
and water purification tablets, amongst other things, to various other
places.
A few times during the week when Paul dropped off other supplies, they got to meet up for lunch for half an hour.
We did our last relief flight almost two months after the cyclone first
hit, and Mercy Air's four aircraft flew an equivalent of 1.7 times round
the world.
We have now finished our immediate involvement with the relief
operations, but for the people living in the affected areas the struggle
will still go on for months, years or even most of their lifetimes.
Thank you
Paul and Cathy for the Mercy Air team.
