Tens of thousands of Mozambicans sit in trees and on roof tops, waiting as rising flood water swirls below. Only God knows when help will come.
Even the sound of a helicopter approaching does not necessarily mean salvation from the worst floods this impoverished nation has seen in living memory.
The South African Air Force has rescued 8,000 people since the latest wave of floods arrived on Sunday, but aid workers estimate that about 100,000 are still trapped on roofs, trees and shrinking islands and need rescue.
A veteran South Africa pilot who has flown in battle in the region said he had never seen anything on this scale before.
"This is an absolute disaster. Simply unbelievable. There are no words to express the level of destruction," the pilot said yesterday during a visit to the floodhit area near Xai Xai, 160 km north-east of the capital Maputo.
The President, Mr Joaquim Chissano, visited the Xai Xai region yesterday and said the situation was worsening.
"We call for air force helicopters to see what they can do today. If they don't do it today, there will be a loss of life, because this evening there will be no more roofs," he said.
People waved shirts and maize stalks to attract the attention of passing craft, but the helicopter chartered by Reuters was too light to lift people and had no winch gear.
As the helicopter flew across the flooded Xai Xai region, an emergency call came through from a fellow pilot who had spotted about 100 people stranded on an island.
"Unless help reaches those people soon they're all going to be dead. The water is rising fast," he said.
Pilots were forced to decide who to rescue and who to leave. Where people appeared to have set up home on a roof, the helicopters left them and opted instead to lift people from trees or islands already mostly submerged.
Some people made fires in trees, while others tied their most valuable possessions such as bicycles and stereos to the highest branches to save them from the rising water.
About 500 people clung to the wreckage of a major bridge. One pilot said the bridge appeared to be collapsing and he feared the last part would soon fall into the water.
Some people being rescued tried to persuade pilots to take in their pigs and goats, but most animals were not spared the misery of the flooding.
Near Xai Xai, the water was littered with dead cattle and goats, while others still tried to swim.
At least 350 people have died across southern Africa in the recent flooding, and in Mozambique more than 800,000 people have been rendered homeless. The country, already one of the world's poorest, was just beginning to see some shoots of recovery after a long civil war which ended in 1992.
"The help we have on the ground nowhere matches the disaster on our hands. We need more helicopters. We need more planes to get fuel into camps where they have been set up, but we have not seen adequate international response to this crisis," said Ms Michelle Quintaglie of the United Nations World Food Programme.
The WFP has said it is poised to use its own cargo aircraft and hire private aircraft to join the seven South African and two Malawian helicopters currently dominating the rescue.
Mr Michael Mhlango, who escaped from the town of Chokwe as it was inundated at the weekend when the Limpopo river burst its banks, said he had lost his sister.
"I'm mourning my sister. I saw the water coming and I told her to come out. I tried to help her but she refused," he said.
Police said they had opened the jails at Chokwe to allow prisoners to escape the floods.
In Maputo, Ms Stella Narotam (23) spent the whole of yesterday begging the South African Air Force to fly a special mission to Chokwe to try and rescue her disabled father, her mother and three year old niece.
"My father cannot walk. I'm trying to see if they can go back and rescue them or give them food because they are all alone there and they are trapped," she said.