The likely death toll from flooding and torrential rain in Mozambique, Malawi and the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar reached the 260 mark, with almost 300,000 people driven from their homes.

Seventy-one have died in northern and central Mozambique, with 80,000 displaced, Rita de Almeida, spokeswoman for the country’s National Disaster Management Institute, said Monday by phone from the capital, Maputo.

In Malawi, at least 176 people are feared to have died, while about 135,000 have fled their homes, Vice President Saulos Chilima said in an e-mailed statement on Jan. 16. The southern districts of Nsanje, Chikwawa and Phalombe, which border on Mozambique, were worst hit, he said.

In Madagascar, which lies offshore of Mozambique, a tropical storm claimed 13 lives and displaced at least 80,000 people, the island-nation’s National Office for Disaster Management said in a statement issued in the capital, Antananarivo.

Parts of Zimbabwe and Zambia have also been affected by flooding this year.