Natural disasters don’t recognise border posts. The floods that continue to sweep the region prove the point, as they pour through Zambia, Namibia and Angola, displacing thousands of people, destroying crops, schools and homes and carrying the threat of diseases such as cholera and malaria.
Hydrologists fear there may be more rains to come in the next few weeks, with Cyclone Izilda heading for Mozambique.
In parts of Zambia’s western province the Zambezi River is already higher than the level of the 1969 floods and has destroyed crops and inundated entire villages. There are reports of villagers being attacked by crocodiles and hippos and being bitten by snakes as the water levels rise.
In Namibia the government has declared a state of emergency, calling the floods — which have affected more than a quarter of a million people — ”the worst in living memory”.
Floods, caused by torrential rains which caused the Kavango River to burst its banks, have affected six regions since the rains began in February.
This year’s flooding in Angola’s Cunene province – which has displaced up to 220 000 people – comes on the heels of another flood last year, which residents of the Ombadja area in Cunene say was the first since 1963.
While seasonal flooding is not an unknown phenomenon in the Southern Africa region, in recent years it has become harder to predict when floods will strike and how severe the damage will be. Instead of a few huge emergencies, the region now faces more small-scale disasters more often.
These smaller events don’t generate media headlines as large-scale disasters do, but the people affected still need help.
While seasonal flooding unfolds more slowly, the impact is devastating, particularly when a community has been hit for two or three years in a row.
The floods mean poor harvests for the second year in a row (with cereal crop harvests down by as much as two-thirds in some parts of Namibia), often in areas where high HIV prevalence rates and large numbers of orphans make communities extremely vulnerable to hunger.
Many areas are accessible only by boat or helicopter, leaving people cut off from markets and resulting in sharp hikes in food prices.
Boreholes and safe supplies of drinking water are contaminated by floodwater, and stagnant water creates breeding grounds for malarial mosquitoes.
In Angola roads are washed away and people have drowned.
In western Zambia schools are damaged and classes interrupted.
On the border between Angola and Namibia — an area that was once heavily mined — flood waters are washing forgotten land mines out of the ground, creating a serious hazard for residents.
Smaller disasters tend to attract fewer resources from donors and it is harder to raise funds from the public for a series of floods in Angola than for a massive tsunami in Sri Lanka.
Camps for displaced people have been established and governments and aid organisations are providing shelter, food, water and sanitation.
Medical supplies such as antiretrovirals and TB treatment have been flown by helicopter to clinics cut off by high water, though it is unlikely that all affected people will be reached in this way.
But these are short-term solutions. As extreme weather events become more intense and more frequent, the focus must be on building the resilience of vulnerable communities to adapt and respond to them.
The challenge for governments and NGOs is to reduce the threat by investing in early warning systems and risk mapping to predict both droughts and floods.
This information can be used, for example, in times of drought by diversifying crops and investing in food production methods that are less water intensive. Building the capacity of local communities to take mitigating measures such as clearing canals and locating food stores on higher ground will also mean that flooding has less negative impacts when it happens.
Building the capacity of both national, local government and local NGOs to predict, mitigate and respond to emergencies is crucial.
There are lessons to be learned from countries such as Mozambique, where the response capacity of the national disaster management body has been successfully developed.
In this year’s seasonal flooding effective coordination and communication meant that risky areas were evacuated early and not a single life was lost.
Adam Berthoud is the Southern Africa regional humanitarian coordinator for Oxfam Britain