A French missionary priest travelled for five days to find someone to tell about his Mozambican flock of 8,000 left clinging to trees and huts.
The epic journey cost Father JeanPierre Le Scour (58) his four-by-four utility vehicle, swallowed by floodwaters, and very nearly his life as he was swept away himself. He grabbed the branches of a tree to save himself and then ate grasshoppers and leaves to survive.
"It's something that perhaps should never happen in a person's life. I didn't look for it," Father Le Scour said.
He left Mabalane, about 350 km (220 miles) north-west of Maputo, on February 23rd, two weeks after torrential rains started in the region.
"I decided to chance it. The people had no food, no fresh water," Father Le Scour said. They were being forced to hold on to trees and flooded huts.
He set out to drive to neighbouring Zimbabwe in a four-wheel-drive vehicle and tried to rescue a group of stranded people standing on the roof of their car to escape from rising waters.
"I didn't cherish the idea of helping but I did . . . But the current was so strong it overcame my 4x4 like a dead leaf," he said. He was forced to abandon the truck and struggled to reach a tree but was swept down river for another 1.5 km. His strength sapped, the priest grabbed at tree branches to escape the rushing water.
"I didn't have the strength to climb it. I started eating grasshoppers and the leaves of the trees to stop hypothermia," he said. "I lost everything."
He said he did not know what happened to the people he had tried to rescue. Only after the waters subsided did Father Le Scour leave his tree home of more than a day and continue his search for help on foot, ending up in South Africa.
Western air forces tried on Thursday to find his community but the first flight failed to locate them and a second attempt had to be abandoned because of renewed rain. The rain eased yesterday and aid flights resumed.