Mozambique Prez: Thousands may have been killed from cyclone Idai

The death toll in Mozambique from Cyclone Idai could be as high as 1,000, President Filipe Nyusi has said.

"Officially, we have a record of more than 84 dead but everything indicates that we can have a record of more than 1,000 dead," Nyusi said, adding that "100,000 people are in danger."

Nyusi flew over some of the worst-hit areas on Monday. He described seeing bodies floating in the rivers.

The storm made landfall near the port city of Beira on Thursday with winds of up to 177 km/h (106 mph), but aid teams only reached the city on Sunday.

He called the situation a "real humanitarian disaster of large proportions."

"Waters from the rivers Pungue and Buzi have broken their banks, wiping out entire villages, isolating communities and we could see, as we flew above, bodies floating," the President said.

Gerald Bourke, from the UN's World Food Programme, said: "No building is untouched. There is no power. There are no telecommunications. The streets are littered with fallen electricity lines.

"The roofs on so many houses have fallen in, likewise the walls. A lot of people in the city have lost their homes."

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Society (IFRC) described the damage as "massive and horrifying".

In Zimbabwe, at least 98 people have died and 217 people are missing in the east and south, the government said.

The death toll included two pupils from the St Charles Lwanga boarding school in the district of Chimanimani, who died after their dormitory was hit when rocks swept down a mountain.

The cyclone comes a week after severe flooding -- associated with the same storm system that later became Cyclone Idai -- affected 1.5 million people in Mozambique and Malawi, killing at least 120 people in both countries, UN officials said.

The UK government said it would provide humanitarian aid worth £6m ($8m) to Mozambique and Malawi. It also said it would send tents and thousands of shelter kits to Mozambique.