Floods worsen in Moz, Malawi

2008-02-04 08:55

Maputo - World Bank President Robert Zoellick on Sunday toured flood stricken areas of Mozambique, as authorities launched yet another emergency operation to rescue thousands cut off by rising waters.

In neighbouring Malawi, the country's president pleaded with residents of a swamped valley to move permanently to higher grounds as floods claimed six lives - including those of three brothers on their way home from a soccer match.

Zoellick, who was on an African tour, held a two-hour meeting with Mozambique's prime minister and was due to have talks with President Armando Guebuza on Monday.

Mozambique had won praise from the World Bank and the donor community for its sound economic policies, but the government feared that heavy flooding in the past two years would undermine its efforts to lift its population out of poverty.

70 000 affected in Malawi

Mozambique and other southern African nations often suffered flooding in the rainy season. But this year the rains had been earlier and heavier than usual.

So far, more than 90 000 people had been evacuated to safety in Mozambique, and 70 000 had been affected in Malawi. Southern Zambia and Zimbabwe were also badly hit.

The floods had washed away schools and houses, cut road links and destroyed vital crops. More than 50 people had died in total, most trapped in the waters, some eaten by crocodiles.

After a brief respite thanks to a pause in the rainfall last week, Mozambique's national emergency centre on Sunday launched a rescue operation to assist people cut off by the flood waters of the Zambezi river in Manica and Tete provinces, where thousands of people were believed to be at risk and where rising waters had reached areas previously believed to be safe.

In some parts of the country, the situation was more acute than in 2000 and 2001, when floods killed 800 people.

20 000 people to be evacuated

Since then, authorities had overhauled their disaster management, with an efficient early warning system, mass evacuations and a food-for-work programme for people to build new homes in resettlement areas.

Authorities reported that most major rivers were well above flood alert level and an increasing number of roads had been cut, and several towns were completely isolated. Relief workers were in an uphill battle to supply resettlement areas, which were home to tens of thousands of displaced.

The disaster management agency says that more than 20 000 people are still to be evacuated from the risky zones in the central region.

Malawi's president Bingu wa Mutharika flew over the flood-stricken Shire Valley on Sunday, where nearly 50 000 people had lost their homes and crops, voicing concern that the floods would affect food production since large tracts of crop fields had been destroyed.

He pleaded with people to leave the fertile agricultural area and move to higher ground. He said: "My government is ready to assist you building houses, schools and clinics."

- AP