MAPUTO 23 Mar (ANA) - The UN has said the final casualty figure after Cyclone Idai tore through southern Africa more than a week ago will only be known once the flood waters have receded. 

At least 417 people have now been declared dead in Mozambique, Land and Environment Minister Celso Correia has said.

The new figure puts the overall death toll at about 700 people across Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi.

It is expected to rise further.

The United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Saturday that the Buzi and Zambezi rivers were at risk of breaking their banks again.

"We're going to have to wait until the flood waters recede until we know the full expanse of the toll on the people of Mozambique," OCHA co-ordinator Sebastian Rhodes Stampa said.

Thousands remain trapped by the floodwaters, and many of the Mozambican government's relief centres have only just started receiving food supplies - more than a week after the storm first struck. 

Some 1.7 million people are said to be affected across southern Africa, with no electricity or running water.(ANA)

FA/ANA/23 March 2019--------