In addition to wreaking death and destruction throughout southern Africa, Cyclone Eline may well go down in history for hastening the demise of President Robert Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe.
The tropical storm cut Zimbabwe's vital oil supply routes, exacerbating the country's already desperate fuel shortage, which has affected every level of life and economic activity.
The critical fuel shortage forced the resignation over the weekend of one of Mr Mugabe's most trusted cabinet ministers. But that was not enough to quell public anger which threatens to spill over into public unrest. The new labour-backed opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), called at the weekend for the resignation of Mr Mugabe and his entire cabinet. The spiralling fuel crisis puts the government at a disadvantage in the crucial parliamentary elections due in April.
Eline's torrential winds and rain flooded eastern and southern Zimbabwe, making an estimated 250,000 people homeless. Twenty-nine people have drowned and the death toll is still rising, with another 12 people missing. Bridges, roads, railways and power lines have been washed away by the floods. The level of Zimbabwe's dams and rivers continues to rise and, as most of the rivers flow into Mozambique, this will only compound the problems in that already devastated country.
Hundreds of rural communities have been forced to flee flood waters and for most of the weekend a single helicopter struggled to pluck people from treetops in eastern Manicaland Province. Zimbabwe's other helicopters are in use in the Congo war.
Landlocked Zimbabwe's main supply route for oil was cut off when Cyclone Eline sank a large boat at the entrance to the Mozambican port of Beira. A fully-loaded oil tanker is unable to deliver badly needed supplies for Zimbabwe. In addition, the floods temporarily knocked out the oil pipeline which runs the 300 km from Beira to Zimbabwe's eastern border town of Mutare.
Zimbabwe's second source of oil fuels is by rail from South Africa and that was cut off when Beit Bridge was submerged under the rushing waters of the "great grey-green greasy Limpopo".
Already badly hit by the three-month fuel shortage, Zimbabwe is now nearly without supplies of petrol, diesel or paraffin oil. It will take at least a week to get any fresh supplies in through a long alternative route through Botswana.
Queues of hundreds of cars, trucks, taxis and tractors snaked throughout Harare over the weekend as motorists waited for up to six hours to get as little as 10 litres of fuel. Two people were injured in a shooting after a fuel queue dispute.
Industries were forced to curtail production last week as deliveries slowed down. A major baker announced at the weekend that the fuel shortage had left his firm unable to deliver bread to Harare's outlying townships, where some 800,000 people live.
The townships have also been badly hit by the shortage of paraffin, which is used by most families for cooking. Riot police used sjamboeks (short whips) to keep order in increasingly frantic queues of township residents for paraffin. Others are hiking miles to cut down trees for cooking fuel.
The dire fuel crisis forced the Energy and Transport Minister, Mr Enos Chikowore, to resign last week. Mr Chikowore, a distant cousin of Mr Mugabe's, has become a figure of bitter public ridicule. His obtuse blustering could not hide that gross corruption and mismanagement at his ministry caused the fuel crisis.
Zimbabwe's new opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) announced at the weekend that the resignation of Mr Chikowore "was not enough" and called for the entire Mugabe government to resign.
Reuters adds: Hundreds of war veterans from Zimbabwe's independence struggle invaded and occupied a number of white-owned farms at the weekend, saying they were tired of waiting for promised land.