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Flooding isolates thousands
27/01/2007 17:50 - (SA)
Emmanuel Camillo
Maputo - Some 43 000 people are stranded in western Mozambique after a river burst its banks following heavy rains, the state news agency AIM reported on Saturday.
Three islands on the Shire River - the main tributary of the Zambezi -were submerged by rising waters, the agency said. It said it was unclear whether island inhabitants had escaped but had no word on casualties.
In the worst affected town of Mutarara, in the western Tete province, the government has set up four temporary accommodation centres for those made homeless by the flooding. By Friday more than 2 250 people were in the centres.
Paulo Zucula, director of the National Disasters Management Institute ordered the immediate dispatch to the centres of food aid, tents, fuel, chlorine for purifying drinking water and construction material for building latrines.
The World Food Program mobilised 120 tons of food for the town.
Torrential rains in neighbouring Malawi caused the flooding and prompted alarm about the rising levels of the Zambezi.
At Caia, in the central Sofala province, the Zambezi has now been above the flood alert level of five metres for almost three weeks and is still rising.
In the northern province of Nampula, more than 1 000 families are in need of assistance because of the heavy rains.
Mozambique's second largest city, Beira, was also preparing for more rain after being inundated by downpours on Thursday.
The rains, which started earlier this month, have so far made thousands homeless and damaged infrastructure in one of the world's poorest countries.
Mozambique suffers from frequent flooding. In 2000 and 2001, floods killed more than 800 people, left hundreds of thousands homeless and severely damaged roads and bridges.
- SAPA
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