Thousands of people in Mozambique were still trapped in their homes by rising flood waters on Friday as heavy rains continued to pound Southern Africa, heightening fears of a particularly severe flood season.
Mozambique’s national disaster-management agency, the INGC, said close to 2 000 people were still waiting to be brought to safety by helicopter or boat as the death toll in the flooding rose to 12.
Aid agencies were preparing for a sharp deterioration of the situation as summer rains, arriving earlier than usual, continued to fall on Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe, feeding into rivers running through neighbouring Mozambique, particularly the Zambezi.
About 72 000 people have been affected by the flooding so far, according to aid agency Oxfam. More than 50 000 have been evacuated to resettlement areas.
About 22 000 houses have been submerged and more than 37 000ha of crops inundated.
Up to 250 000 Mozambicans living along the Zambezi, Africa’s fourth-largest river, could require food aid if flooding continued in the valley, caused by the unavoidable opening of floodgates in the Cahora Bassa Dam, according to Action Aid and the United Nations World Food Programme.
”We are doing everything we can so save lives. We are prioritising the removal of people from risk areas,” said Joao Ribeiro, INGC deputy national director.
The Zambezi has, meanwhile, claimed its first victim. The body of a man who was apparently fishing in the valley was seen floating in the water in Caia district, bringing the death toll to 12, according to the INGC.
National disaster
In Zambia, whose President Levy Mwanawasa this week declared a national disaster over the floods, a Care worker said water levels in the south, where thousands of hectares of farmland, several schools and a key bridge had been submerged, were twice as high as the same time last year.
Three people have died in Zambia, and about 60 000 evacuated their homes in an effort coordinated by the vice-president’s office and drawing on the involvement of about 19 000 Zambian Red Cross volunteers.
Care was preparing for an eventual outbreak of waterborne diseases such as cholera and malaria, evaluation monitor Michael Schroll said. It also predicted a ”serious threat” to the maize harvest.
Malawi and Zimbabwe have also been affected by the flooding. In Malawi, five people have died and in Zimbabwe, at least 30 people succumbed to flooding caused by record heavy rains in December that appear to have abated.
NGOs fear this year’s floods in Mozambique, deemed worse than last year’s floods that affected 285 000 people and killed more than 40, could be heavier than the 2000/01 floods that killed 700 people and displaced half a million.
The state’s early intervention to evacuate flood victims was praised as likely to help prevent casualties, but the damage to infrastructure and livelihoods was expected to be vast.
”People were only just beginning to rebuild the little they had after the 2007 floods,” said Michael Tizora, humanitarian coordinator of Oxfam International in Mozambique. ”They now have to start again.” — Sapa-dpa