The known death toll from Mozambique's month-long floods leapt to almost 500 yesterday as the waters receded and aid workers warned that the eventual number of victims would be much higher.
"Sadly, we should definitely expect the numbers of deaths to increase," said Ms Rosa Malango, a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The Mozambique National Disaster Institute said 492 bodies had now been recovered, the formal count from Mozambique's overstretched local authorities that was set to head higher.
Aid agencies fear the dead will number well into the thousands as more bodies are found and diseases such as malaria and cholera take hold in overcrowded refugee camps.
"I fear the death toll could be horrendously high . . . Lots of people who were swept away by the flooding are only now able to be recovered," said Ms Kate Horne of Oxfam International.
Ms Graca Machel, the wife of the former South African president, Mr Nelson Mandela, and widow of Mozambique's late president, Samora Machel, urged a meeting of agency workers yesterday to hunt out still stranded communities.
"Machel gave a strong warning that we now needed to push further into the country and urgently bring supplies to these people", said one aid worker who attended the meeting.
With the focus beginning to shift away from day-to-day crisis relief, the UN-affiliated World Food Programme (WFP) started a $34 million appeal to see 650,000 Mozambicans who have lost homes and crops through the next half-year.
"About 55,000 tonnes of food is needed over the next six months", said the WFP spokeswoman, Ms Lindsey Davies.
Some $4 million of the appeal will be used to mend damaged roads and $3 million will be given to the South African military to keep its helicopters operational until the end of March.
A dozen British, Spanish and South African helicopters again took to the skies from Maputo's tiny airport yesterday to airlift food and medical supplies to the camps. But aid agencies said some roads were now gradually being reopened, a crucial help with more rain forecast.
The South African Weather Bureau yesterday forecast three more days of rain over inundated central and southern regions of Mozambique. It also forecast heavy rain around Beira, the second city, and Quelimane, northeast of Beira.
Kieran Murray reports from Antsiranana:
French military helicopters were deployed yesterday in a race to get food aid to villages in Madagascar stranded by two cyclones that killed 150 people and destroyed vital crops.
France's helicopter ship Jeanne d'Arc arrived in the port town of Antsiranana on Madagascar's northern tip and crews ran reconnaissance trips over remote communities hardest hit by cyclones Eline and Gloria in the past three weeks.
Two Puma helicopters based on the ship set off to drop UN food supplies into remote northeastern villages of the large Indian Ocean island.
Mr Haladou Salha, the UN World Food Programme's country manager in Madagascar, said the French helicopters would be available only until Thursday, so speed and a little luck would be crucial. "The next three days are very important", Mr Salha said. "If we are lucky, we will have good weather and they will make a lot of flights."
An estimated 150 people were killed in raging flood waters and mudslides when Eline and Gloria ripped across swathes of Madagascar late last month and early this month. Homes and crops were destroyed in high winds and flood waters, and many rural villages were cut off from the outside world as roads were swept away or blocked by mudslides.
The crisis has been overshadowed by the much greater devastation caused by the cyclones in Mozambique, which lies just 400km to the west. But relief workers said Madagascar will need help for months to come.