Extreme weather destroys 546 houses in Massingir

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Extreme weather destroys 546 houses in Massingir

3:38 CAT | 31 Oct 2019

Photo: O País

Massingir District in Gaza Province has been battered by extreme weather, destroying 546 homes, some totally and others partially, and leaving about 600 families stranded in the open.

High winds accompanied by lightning struck public and private infrastructure, the storm even taking its toll of cattle.

Born in Maputo city, Rosa Abdul Palé has lived in the village headquarters of Massingir District in Gaza Province for ten years. She has three children, one a newborn. Rosa is out in the open today, after seeing the gales tear down her one-compartment house made of stakes and mud, covered with grass.

Rosa’s family is one of the six hundred who watched the gale reduce their homes to rubble. She lost all her belongings, too.

“My bed broke, and so did the table. So many broken things here,” she bemoans. “I have no food – I can only thank my neighbours, who are feeding me. Everything’s lost here, in this ‘matope’ [mud].”

The lightning even struck eight head of cattle belonging to Ms. Celita Nhate, who has maintained a corral there since 1979, and whose cattle were multiplying. Nhate said she used cattle from that corral for her sons’ bride-price

Now, she says, she doesn’t have the strength to carry on, and doesn’t know if she will get any support from the authorities to replace her herd. “I don’t know how I’ll recover. Where I am right now, I don’t have the strength. I do not know what to do. I don’t know if the government will help me, but I haven’t seen any help yet,” she says.

The trail of destruction in Massingir is apparent everywhere. The administrative post building was also affected, its ceiling has collapsed and the archives destroyed.

The Agro-Industrial and Commercial Institute 25 de Junho was seriously hit, with 25 of its students left without facilities, but its director Alberto Mabunda told ‘O País’ that the school knew how to find solutions to the problems it faces.

Sérgio Moiane, head of the Massingir Government, told ‘O País’ that the District Government is currently working with those affected.

“We have fifty rolls of plastic that we can distribute to help the affected communities. As you know, Massingir is suffering a prolonged drought and the grass for roofs is scarce. Let us help communities, let us consider the vulnerable families above all to provisionally create conditions. And one thing to be considered is that the people with some possessions may eventually be able to replace their homes, and most importantly there has been no loss of human life.”

The Massingir District Government says it has recorded seven injuries, two of them serious, but all discharged from hospital. “Health personnel were on call, and treated people who were not serious, and they returned home the same day. The rest were hospitalised that night and the following day were discharged the following day. They continue to receive outpatient treatment,” Moiane reported.

The village headquarters suffered interruptions in the supply of both electricity and water as a result of the gales, but the situation is now normalising, with various sectors intervening to restore that which the bad weather has damaged.

By Amândio Borges

Source: O País