After their rescue boat was carried away on Tuesday in the southern Mulanje region, two Malawian troops are now missing.
According to a military official, the attempt was hampered by an overflowing river.
The Minister of Local Government Richard Chimwendo Banda said the troops were part of a six-person group that went to rescue residents stuck when Tropical Storm Freddy blasted through the region.
According to the minister, two other military and one citizen managed to swim back after the boat malfunctioned on the way to the rescue mission.
Mr. Banda stated that one of the missing soldiers had been spotted in a tree and that efforts were being made to rescue him.
More than 200 people were killed by Cyclone Freddy, a record-breaking cyclone that slammed into the landlocked southeast African nation over the weekend.
Blantyre, Malawi’s commercial capital, has recorded the majority of the deaths, including scores of children.
Officials have postponed the reopening of schools until Friday and proclaimed a state of calamity in ten southern districts severely damaged by the storm.