Desperate residents appeal for help as floodwaters rise in Mozambique

PEMBA, Mozambique — A second disaster unfolded Sunday in northern Mozambique in the wake of Cyclone Kenneth as raging floodwaters killed one person and began to cut off the region’s main city from the outside world. About 160,000 people were at risk, with more torrential rain forecast for the days ahead.

“Help us, we are losing everything!” residents in Pemba city shouted at passing cars as the rushing waters poured into doorways. Some houses collapsed, the United Nations said.

“It’s an awful sense of deja vu,” said Nicholas Finney, response team leader with the aid group Save the Children.

Kenneth arrived just six weeks after Cyclone Idai ripped into central Mozambique and killed more than 600 people with flooding. This is the first time in recorded history that the southern African nation has been hit by two devastating cyclones in one season.

The new storm’s remnants could dump twice as much rain as Idai, the U.N. World Program has said.

“I have never seen such rains in my life,” said Pemba resident Michael Fernando, 35.

Residents mourned one death in the Nitate neighborhood after a brick wall fell and crushed a woman, said community leader Estenacio Pilale.

Authorities earlier said at least five people died after Kenneth roared in Thursday evening with the force of a Category 4 hurricane.

The government said more than 160,000 people have been affected in the largely rural region, many now exposed and hungry. More than 35,000 homes in parts of Mozambique’s northernmost Cabo Delgado were partially or fully destroyed by the storm.

Aid workers trying to reach hard-hit communities outside Pemba on Sunday were forced to turn back by rivers that burst their banks, with floodwaters reaching the roofs of houses. It was not clear when aid to thousands...