Mozambique cyclone leaves destruction (Charles Mangwiro)

   A tropical storm that struck Mozambique has weakened, but officials fear it may still head towards the Zambezi basin, exacerbating heavy flooding.

  Feb. 23, 2007 -- MAPUTO (Reuters) -- A powerful tropical storm that struck Mozambique lost some of its fury Friday but left a trail of destruction and may have forced thousands of people from their homes, officials said.

  Cyclone Favio, which has killed four people and injured at least 70 in the resort town of Vilanculos, was downgraded to a tropical storm as wind speeds dropped from a peak of 270 kph (170 mph) to between 60-80 kph (35-70 mph).

  Officials fear it still may take its rain toward the Zambezi river basin, where several weeks of flooding had already displaced more than 120,000 people.

  Authorities and humanitarian agencies are already battling to keep tens of thousands of flood refugees in central Mozambique supplied with food and fresh water.

  Joao Ribeiro, the deputy national director of the National Institute for Disaster Management, INGC, said as many as 93,000 people may have been driven from their homes.

  "The numbers are still coming in ... there is a communication problem," he told Reuters.

  "There was too much damage and we have dispatched a team from several ministries to potentially affected areas where we think things may have gone worse."

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