Associated Press In this March 24, 2019 photo, a family sits outside their house surrounded by water in a village 40 kilometres outside Beira, Mozambique.

BEIRA, Mozambique — Relief operations pressed into rural Mozambique where an unknown number of people remain without aid more than 10 days after a cyclone ripped across the country, while the World Health Organization warned of a "second disaster" if disease breaks out. The United Nations said some 1.8 million people there need urgent help after Cyclone Idai, and it made an emergency appeal for $282 million for the next three months. The death toll remained at least 761 in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, and authorities have warned it is "very preliminary." More bodies will be found as floodwaters drain away.

Emergency responders raced to contain deadly diseases such as cholera, which authorities have said will break out as more than a quarter-million displaced people shelter in camps with little or no clear water and sanitation. Many wells were contaminated by the floods. People are living in tent camps, schools, churches, roads and other impromptu places on higher ground. Many have little but their clothes, squatting over cooking fires and picking their way around stretches of increasingly dirty water or simply walking through it, resigned. The World Health Organization said it is expecting a "spike" in malaria cases in Mozambique. The disease-carrying mosquitoes breed in standing water. WHO also said 900,000 oral cholera vaccines were expected to arrive later this week. Cholera is caused by eating contaminated food or drinking water and can kill within hours. Cases of diarrhea have been reported. 'Horrific conditions' in camps "We must not let these people suffer a second disaster through a serious disease outbreak or inability to access essential health services. They have suffered enough," Dr. Djamila Cabral, the WHO Representative in Mozambique, told reporters in Geneva. She said people in camps were living in "horrific conditions" and that about 55 health centres had been severely damaged. Aid continued to arrive, including much-needed air support. The World Food Program received $280,000 from the European Union to support the deployment of a U.N. Humanitarian Air Service helicopter that will deliver assistance to the two worst-hit districts in Zimbabwe, Chimanimani and Chipinge. The United States said it had donated nearly $3.4 million in emergency food assistance to the World Food Program, whose director was touring Beira on Tuesday.

Associated Press A displaced family arrives after being rescued by a boat from a flooded area of Buzi district, 200 kilometres outside Beira, Mozambique, on March 23, 2019.