The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has started rescue operations and food deliveries in central Mozambique where flooding has forced an estimated 85 000 to flee their homes, the organisation said on Thursday.
The missions come as flood waters in the Mutarara, Caia and Marromeu districts near levels last seen during the catastrophic Mozambique floods of 2001, the WFP said in a statement.
Am Mi-8 helicopter, chartered by the WFP, flew to Cocorico island where 120 people were trapped by floodwaters and delivered 2,5 tons of food on Wednesday to a Shamrrucha centre for displaced people.
The missions were coordinated by the Mozambican government’s National Institute for Disaster Management (INGC).
The helicopter continued food deliveries from its base in Caia on Thursday, the same day that 10 000 litres of JetA1 fuel for the helicopter arrived by road.
The organisation and its partners began distributing food aid this week to 2 000 people housed in temporary centres in the Caia district and 6 100 people in Mutarara district of Tete Province.
The INGC also had a dozen boats ferrying people to higher ground in the Caia district.
Heavy rains over the last month in central and northern Mozambique and neighbouring Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe flooded the Zambezi, Chire and Rivubue rivers in Tete, Manica, Sofala and Zambezia provinces.
The 800km-long Lower Zambezi River in Mozambique is above alert levels and a total of about 10 000 people affected by the Zambezi Valley floods had received WFP food.
The INGC said on Wednesday that the situation was under control, but it could worsen with nearly a month of rainy season left and continued heavy downpours in Zambia and Malawi, the WFP said.
Floods have displaced 85 000 people, with 29 000 in accommodation centres.
The Lower Zambezi was still being fed through tributaries by rains from neighbouring countries.
The discharge rate of the Cahora Bassa Dam in Tete province on Wednesday dropped to 6 000 cubic metres per second compared with 8 400 cubic metres per second on the weekend.
”If the government can control the dam outflows and rains in neighbouring countries decline, flooding on a scale similar to 2001 could be averted,” the WFP said.
The Mozambican government had sent troops to assist with evacuation in the worst-hit areas but some people had refused to leave their homes, land and livestock.
An appeal to support the Mozambican government’s efforts would be launched soon by the WFP and other in-country humanitarian agencies.
The INGC estimates that 285 000 people in Mozambique may need food and other assistance for the next few months in a worst-case scenario, the WFP said.
An estimated 40 000ha of crops have been lost in Mozambique under the floods.
Flooding has also hit Angola, Madagascar, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe this year.
The WFP said it has responded but faced a critical shortfall in funding for its Southern Africa operations and needed $105-million through to the end of 2007. — Sapa