Thousands of people living in the coastal towns and cities of Mozambique have been displaced by Indian Ocean high sea tides that swept into residential and commercial areas this week, Vista News reported on Thursday.
The same phenomenon had sent massive waves slamming into the South Coast of South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province earlier this week, destroying beachside businesses and homes.
Radio Mozambique said in a report on Thursday that the high sea tides had destroyed protection walls erected at the tourist resorts of Tofo in Inhambane, Pemba, Beira and Maputo. It said more than 2 000 people who live in the affected areas had abandoned their homes by Wednesday.
The effects of high sea tides were felt in Mozambique from Sunday. Islands and residential areas near Maputo were affected, resulting in the destruction of more than 500 houses.
No human casualties have been reported.
Orlando Machava, a secretary in one of the coastal suburbs near Maputo, told the station that more than 150 families had been affected in a suburb near Costa de Sol on the eastern side of Maputo.
He said the national disaster management institute (INGC) had promised to donate tents if the situation worsened.
The daily Noticias said in its Thursday edition that more than 1 300 families had been displaced in Beira, 1 900km north of Maputo, after the sea waters invaded their homes.
Several other people were also displaced from their homes in the far northern town of Pemba on Tuesday after the waters reached their homes, the paper said.
This latest development comes barely a month after more than 100 000 people were displaced by Cyclone Favio and cyclone-induced floods in the central and southern provinces.
About 100 people died in these natural disasters, while thousands others are now accommodated in refugee centres after they lost their homes.
Officials from the Health Ministry have started distributing water-treating chemicals to the affected areas.
The city of Maputo, the national disaster institute and the Red Cross of Mozambique announced in a joint press release that they were ”continuing to monitor the situation in order to avoid loss of human life and to minimise damage caused by the sea waters”. — Sapa