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The devastating tropical cyclone Freddy, which hit southern Africa in a rare second landfall, has killed at least 216 people in Malawi and Mozambique since Saturday night, with the death toll expected to rise.

Heavy rains that triggered flooding and landslides have killed 199 people in Malawi, authorities said Tuesday.

President Lazarus Chakwera declared a “state of disaster” in the country’s southern region and the now devastated commercial capital Blantyre.

Some 19,000 people in the south of the nation have been displaced, according to Malawi’s disaster management directorate.

“Power supplies and communications are down in many affected areas, making relief operations difficult,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

The worst affected regions remain inaccessible, so the full extent of the damage is unknown at this time.

Reports from Mozambique’s disaster institute confirmed on Tuesday that 17 people have been killed in the country and 1,900 houses have been destroyed in the coastal province of Zambezia.

Tens of thousands of people remain sheltered in storm shelters and accommodation centers.

Freddy will continue to pound central Mozambique and southern Malawi with extreme rain before returning to sea on Wednesday afternoon, the UN weather center on Reunion Island projected.

The human rights group Amnesty International has called on the international community to mobilize resources and boost relief and rescue efforts in the two countries.

Relief efforts in the nations are strained and they were already battling a cholera outbreak when Freddy struck.

“It is clear that the official death toll will rise in both Malawi and Mozambique, as will reports of destroyed infrastructure,” said Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s Director for Eastern and Southern Africa.

“Affected countries must also be compensated for the loss and damage caused by the cyclone.”

In November of last year, nations agreed to compensate countries affected by extreme weather exacerbated by human-caused climate change.

Cyclones are wetter, more frequent and more intense as the planet warms, scientists say.

“Mozambique and Malawi are among the countries least responsible for climate change, but face the full force of storms intensifying due to global warming driven mainly by carbon emissions from the world’s richest nations,” Chagutah added.

Cyclone Freddy has been wreaking destruction in southern Africa since late February.

It also hit the island states of Madagascar and Réunion last month as it crossed the ocean.

The cyclone has intensified a record seven times and has the highest cumulative cyclone energy ever recorded, which is a measure of how much energy a cyclone has released over time.

Freddy recorded more energy during its lifetime than an entire typical US hurricane season.

The cyclone first developed near Australia in early February and will become the longest tropical cyclone on record.

The UN weather agency convened a panel of experts to determine if it has broken the record set by Hurricane John in 1994 of 31 days.