Thousands of people have had to flee their homes and the cyclone has destroyed almost 20,000 homes, wrecked electricity pylons and uprooted trees.

Emergency officials said the cyclone was moving south and they expected the death toll to increase.

Paulo Zucula, director of the National Institute of Disaster Management (INGC), said Cyclone Jokwe was more dangerous than Cyclone Favio, which hit Mozambique last year killing 10 people.

"The situation is terrible right now with dangerous winds of 200 kph travelling to the southern parts of Mozambique," he told Reuters.

Zucula said more floods could be expected as the cyclone is heading inland to areas in central Zambezia province already battered by floods earlier this year.

Tens of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes earlier this year in what the United Nations said could be Mozambique's worst floods in memory, engulfing farmland and wrecking roads and bridges.

Last month Cyclone Ivan smashed Madagascar, killing more than 80 people and leaving over 200,000 homeless, but lost steam before striking Mozambique.

In Namibia, the weather bureau said it expected more than 20 cms (8 inches) of rain in northern and central areas later this week and predicted a further bout of the flooding that has killed at least 42 people in the north since early February.

"It's looking a little drier right now, but the weather is going to change dramatically towards the middle of the week," said Riaan van Zyl of the Meteorological Services.

Heavy rains in neighbouring Angola led to devastating floods in northern Namibia that have killed at least 42 people and about 26,000 livestock and displaced 4,000 to 5,000 people.

The government declared a national emergency last week in four northern regions, and over the weekend new floodwaters cut off Engela Hospital 20 km (12.5 miles) from the Angolan border at Oshikango, from the rest of the country, officials said.

"People are walking through the water with coffins on their heads to collect their deceased relatives from the hospital," a local resident told Reuters.

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