/ 20 December 2007

Floods leave trail of destruction in Zimbabwe

At least nine people have drowned across Zimbabwe after several days of heavy rain caused flooding in many parts of the country, reports said on Friday.

Most of the deaths have been in the low-lying districts of southern Masvingo province, where people have drowned in flooded rivers following heavy downpours, the state-controlled Herald newspaper reported.

”In Masvingo, the floods struck parts of Chiredzi and Chivi districts where they left a trail of destruction,” said Sibusisiwe Ndlovu, the deputy director of the Civil Protection Unit.

A father and his two children were drowned while trying to cross the Shashe River in Chivi on Wednesday.

Also in southern Zimbabwe, two children and a woman drowned while trying to cross the Devure and Runde Rivers, the paper said.

Two other children, aged 14 and four, drowned in a flooded river in Zimbabwe’s northern Bindura district.

Last week a person was killed in Muzarabani, in the northern Zambezi valley where floods have left 600 families homeless and destroyed crops and swept away livestock.

The floods in that area have since been declared a national disaster.

According to Zimbabwe’s Meteorological Department, heavy rains are expected to continue falling across some parts of the country. – Sapa-DPA