Appeal for aid

In Mozambique, the storm killed 63 people and displaced 49,000 others, according to official statistics.

President Filipe Nyusi appealed for aid to rebuild destroyed infrastructure, in an address to the nation on Wednesday night.

In Malawi, the army and police were leading search and rescue operations, which are set to continue for at least two more days.

Many people perished in landslides that swept away flimsy homes built on slopes.

“Four people from my family are still missing as they are buried in the mud,” Alabu Wiseman, 24, said from a Blantyre school serving as a temporary shelter.

Across the country, more than 88,000 people have been displaced, with many sheltering in 165 temporary camps.

Some people complained that government assistance had been slow in coming.

“We feel abandoned,” said Fadila Njolomole, 19. “My best friend, her brother, sister and mother, went with the mudslide and their bodies have not been found. It’s devastating. You can’t even mourn.”

The country is already grappling with the deadliest cholera outbreak in its history, which has killed more than 1,600 people since last year.

The storm has unofficially broken the World Meteorological Organization’s benchmark as the longest tropical cyclone on record, set in 1994 for a 31day storm named John.

Freddy became a named storm on February 6, making landfall in Madagascar on February 21 and sweeping over the island before reaching Mozambique on February 24.

It then returned to the Indian Ocean and gathered new force over the warm waters, then reversed course to come back much more powerful, packing wind gusts of up to 200 km per hour (125 mph).

Cyclones tracking across the entire Indian Ocean are very infrequent, meteorologists say, with the last occurring in 200.