Over 160 dead in Cyclone Idai

The death toll from the devastating Cyclone Idai that battered Manicaland province since Friday has risen to 150.

A cyclone that ripped across Mozambique and Zimbabwe has killed at least 162 people with scores more missing and caused "massive and horrifying" destruction in the Mozambican city of Beira, authorities and the Red Cross said Monday.

A toll compiled Monday by AFP from official sources puts the death toll in Mozambique at 73, including 55 in Beira alone, and 89 in Zimbabwe.At least 150 more are missing in Zimbabwe, many of them believed to government workers whose housing complex was engulfed by floods.

"The scale of damage caused by cyclone Idai that hit the Mozambican city of Beira is massive and horrifying", the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in a statement."The situation gets terrible and the scale of devastation becomes enormous," It said 90 percent of the city of some 530,000 people and its surrounding area had been "damaged or destroyed. Communication lines have been completely cut and roads have been destroyed. Some affected communities are not yet accessible.