Pumza Fihlani
BBC News, Beira

Information that has come in overnight shows the scale of the floods in Mozambique following Cyclone Idai.

New satellite images reveal a flood zone which runs 125km (78 miles) north-south, 25km across, covering 3,000 sq km (1,200 sq miles). This is a much bigger area than initially prepared for.

Meanwhile, Mozambique’s Environment Minister Celso Correia said efforts are ongoing to rescue 5,000 people trapped in the region.

“The situation is still critical... we will not sleep until everyone is safe,” he told the media at the response centre in Beira airport.

The water levels have started to come down and that has helped aid workers to adapt their strategy and the focus today is on getting boats out.

Those who need emergency care are being evacuated by air and taken to nearby hospitals.

Image source, Getty Images

The bestselling Egyptian author, Alaa Al Aswany, has told BBC Arabic that as a civilian and a writer he refuses to appear before a military court to face charges of insulting the president, the army and the judiciary.

Speaking from New York, the Yacoubian Building novelist said that the government of President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi had banned his television appearances and weekly columns because of what it said was his negative impact on public opinion.

Image source, Getty Images

The denist-turned-author said he now had to teach creative writing in the US to make a living.

He accused the government of stifling freedom of expression.

On Tuesday Egypt's media watchdog issued tighter regulations threatening media outlets with closure and hefty fines for any violations reported by the authorities or members of the public.

BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

Rescue teams in southern Africa are resuming the search for people still trapped by the floodwaters of Cyclone Idai.

An international aid operation is being stepped up to bring food, water and shelter to those displaced by the storm.

The worst affected area is the central Mozambican coast around the port of Beira where two rivers have burst their banks.

Entire villages have been washed away and survivors have spent another night in the open.

In neighbouring Zimbabwe, roads and bridges have been washed away and a government minister said parts of Manicaland province resembled a war zone.

At least 300 people are known to have died in the disaster.

Watch: Cyclone devastation in pictures

Image source, Getty Images

The Zambian authorities have banned an energy drink after it was discovered that it contains an ingredient that's used in the anti-impotence drug Viagra.

At the end of last year a consumer in Uganda complained of a prolonged erection after drinking Power Natural High Energy Drink SX, which is manufactured in Zambia.

The Ugandan health authorities investigated and found that it contained Sildenafil Citrata - the active ingredient in Viagra.

At the time, Zambia said it would also investigate.

"Results from both Zimbabwe and South Africa correlated with those obtained from the Foods and Drugs Laboratory that indicated a positive presence of Sildenafil Citrate," a statement released on Wedensday from the Zambian authorities quoted by Reuters said.

The manufacturer, Revin Zambia, has not commented.

In January, the company's General Manager, Vikas Kapoor, told the BBC's Newsday programme that to the best of his knowledge the energy drink does not contain any drugs.

Thursday's African proverb:

Image source, Buffalo

Click here and scroll to the bottom to send us your African proverbs.

Welcome to the BBC Africa Live page where we'll be keeping you up to date with news and developments on the continent.

Clare Spencer
BBC News

That's all from BBC Africa Live for now. You can keep up-to-date with what's happening across the continent by listening to the Africa Today podcast or checking the BBC News website.

A reminder of our wise words:

And we leave you with this photo from Angola's capital Luanda:

Image source, AFP

We've been hearing eye-witness accounts of what it was like after Cyclone Idai hit Beira in Mozambique.

Wilker de Assis de Sousa Dias, who was in his house during the storm, told BBC Focus on Africa that his house was completely destroyed:

He added that he can't escape:

Now the rain has stopped, he has had an opportunity to walk around and assess the situation. He says that roughly 75% of the city was destroyed.

Another eye-witness in Beira, Nelson Moda, told BBC OS that it was like a bomb had hit the city.

Listen:

Thomas Naadi
BBC Africa, Accra

Google has apologised to Ghana's finance ministry and central bank for displaying a wrong exchange rate for the Ghanaian currency, the cedi, on its currency converter.

On Friday, Google's currency converter said it took 22 cedis to buy one US dollar, when the correct rate was four times less.

Google said in a letter to the ministry and bank that the error occurred because of a “minor glitch” but was “quickly fixed”.

Nigeria also suffered a similar fate last month.

Google's system had converted the naira at about twice its true value. That was the second time Nigeria had been affected by an error in Google’s currency converter.

People in Zimbabwe's capital Harare have been donating food, clothes and other household essentials to victims of Cyclone Idai at the Presbyterian church.

One of the volunteers at the church, Natalie Detering, told the BBC she was taken aback as a woman turned up just before 07:00 local time, having walked for roughly two hours to deliver her donation:

Image source, Natalie Detering

Ms Detering said that the donor had said she couldn't afford her bus fare but had walked all the way from her home because Jesus had told her to.

Among her donations, which she carried on her head, was a pot, a blanket and some of her clothes and a towel.

"I cried the whole day every time I thought about it," Ms Detering said.

Randy Joe Sa'ah
BBC Africa, Bamenda

In Cameroon, 15 students have been kidnapped from the University of Buea this morning.

The students are members of the university football team and were training on campus for the forthcoming university games when the gunmen appeared.

No shots were reportedly fired.

Raisa Ajeba from the women's football squad told me that her team was also training on the same day and as soon as she was told the men had been kidnapped, she ran home.

It is not known who is behind the abduction, but kidnappings have become frequent in the troubled English-speaking regions where separatist groups have been fighting government troops for over a year.

The coach of a top football club was kidnapped earlier this week and subsequently freed, as we reported earlier.

A former junior minister of justice, Emmanuel Ngafesen, has also been kidnapped in Bamenda and has not been found yet.

Police in Kenya are questioning two people - including a traditional ruler - for spreading "fake news" by alleging that an ongoing drought had led to 11 people dying of hunger, Deputy President William Ruto has said.

Speaking at an event in the coastal city of Mobasa, Mr Ruto said that no-one had died because of the drought which has hit northern parts of Kenya and there was "a lot of fake news around what is happening".

"The chief and the other fellow who actually faked death we've locked... We've taken them in for questioning because these are people who are taking a very serious matter, involving human lives, and playing around with it," he added.

Image source, Jan Dick

Zimbabweans have been donating their food, clothes and anything else they think will help to the people who have been affected by the flooding after Cyclone Idai.

People at this Presbyterian church in the capital Harare have been sorting through the donations.

Image source, Jan Dick

Image source, Jan Dick

Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique have been affected by the freak storm that has caused the deaths of at least 300 people and the displacement of thousands.

Read more on the BBC News website.

Ezeanyika Anthony Chibuzor moved to the UK from Nigeria believing fortune would follow quickly.

However, he found himself stranded in a foreign country with little money, alone and struggling.

In the midst of this hardship he found his talent: drawing.

He now displays his drawings of world currencies in galleries around London.

Image source, UN World Food Programme

Thousands of people are waiting on roofs and in trees to be rescued after the floods that followed Cyclone Idai, according to the Red Cross.

"We've thousands of people... in roofs and trees waiting for rescue," Caroline Haga, spokeswoman of International Federation of Red Cross, told AFP news agency in the storm-ravaged Mozambican city of Beira.

"Yesterday we rescued some 167 people from trees and roofs. Today we'll continue that. Unfortunately we can't pick up all the people, so our priority are children, pregnant women, injured people," she added.

So far 200 people have been confirmed dead in Mozambique but the death toll could be much higher.

Read more on the BBC News website.

The BBC's Africa Editor Fergal Keane has been flying over the scene of the flooding in Mozambique.

His pictures give an idea of the extent of the damage done after Cyclone Idai hit:

Pumza Fihlani
BBC News, Beira

Here at the Cyclone Idai response centre - at Beira's airport - there are now repeated helicopter flights taking those who have been rescued to a network of 56 camps dotted across the region.

Aid agencies are scrambling to get help to where it is needed most – tens of thousands of people are still missing across the flooded interior of Mozambique.

Many of those trapped are trying to get to higher ground while they wait for help – anything from a tree to a roof.

And it may be a long wait - persistent heavy rain is slowing down air rescue efforts.

Many villages have been washed away and aid agencies warn that many more could be submerged over the next few days.

Mary Harper
Africa editor, BBC World Service

Mozambique has begun three days of national mourning for the more than 200 people killed by Cyclone Idai, which has wreaked havoc across south-eastern Africa.

A BBC reporter in the Mozambican city of Beira - which was smashed by the storm - says aid workers are struggling.

Communications are down, roads cut off and some communities completely inaccessible.

Malawi's minister of homeland security told the BBC that 700,000 people had been displaced and that there was a desperate need for basic supplies.

In eastern Zimbabwe, thousands of people have been left homeless, and ministers admit they failed to anticipate the magnitude of the cyclone.

Milton Nkosi
BBC Africa, Johannesburg

Image source, Getty Images

Children's rights activist Graça Machel has appealed directly to the UN to send a specialist team to assess the effect of Cyclone Idai on southern Africa.

She told me that she had phoned Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed personally.

"I asked the UN to send a specialised team to do the assessment. We need to know the magnitude, the depth, the extension, the complexity of this tragedy."

She went on to explain to me that she wants the three affected countries - Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi - to have a combined effort calling for global aid support.

On the issue of why she is getting involved, she said: "I am in a position on a platform where I can speak to the world."

Ms Machel has a unique part of history in Southern Africa. She is widow of both former South African President Nelson Mandela and Mozambican President Samora Machel. She is Mozambique's former education minister and currently the Co-Deputy Chair of the group of elder statesmen called The Elders.

Schools in Kenya's drought-stricken Turkana county have shut down as pupils accompany their parents to look for wild fruit in bushes.

BBC Swahili reporter Faith Sudi, who is currently in the area, says pregnant women, children, the elderly and the disabled are the most affected and have been left behind in villages.

"I found malnourished and starving women and children in every village I visited. Their bodies were evidence of the hunger they had faced for days," said the reporter, adding that even thorny trees known to endure drought had dried up.

At Lotukumo primary school, only those students preparing for their national examinations were present.

"Many pupils have joined their parents to look for food and they are not able to come to school," said Charles Ebong'on, the headteacher.

A village called Nadoto has been deserted and only pregnant women, the elderly and children could be seen.

Selina Ebei is seven months pregnant but she has not had food for days.

She is forced to stay in her hut because she cannot walk long distances under the scorching sun to provide for her two-year-old child.

On Tuesday, government minister Eugene Wamalwa confirmed that deaths were reported in Turkana but denied they were linked to the ongoing drought.

Read more: Kenyan anger over Turkana 'starvation' being ignored