Lightning kills three children in central Mozambique

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Lightning kills three children in central Mozambique

12:41 CAT | 12 Dec 2018

Three children were killed and six other persons from the same family were injured after their home in Manica, central Mozambique, was struck by lightning.

The incident occurred Sunday when lightning struck a barn where nine members of the same family were sharing a meal in the village of Chinguno in Mossurize district, south Manica, Manica police spokeswoman Elcidia Filipe revealed.

The barn was left in ashes despite heavy rain, she added. The six survivors were taken to hospital, where they are receiving medical care.

In 2017, several members of a religious sect worshipping under trees in Mossurize were struck by lightning and died.

The province of Manica has been experiencing rains, strong winds and thunderstorms since Saturday, affecting the districts of Guro, Tambara, Macossa, Barue, Manica, Gondola, Sussundenga, Machaze, Mossurize and Chimoio, according to the National Institute of Meteorology, which considers the regions “risk areas”.

Mozambique is hit by floods annually between October and April because of its geographic location downstream of most of the watersheds in Southern Africa.

The National Institute for Disaster Management (INGC) last week revealed that bad weather caused seven deaths from October to the first week of December. The victims lived in Manica and Tete in the centre of the country and Niassa in the north, and died from lightning strike as well as drowning.

The INGC says that around 540 houses have been partially destroyed during the current rainy season, affecting about 2,000 people. The Mozambican government has announced 206 million meticais (EUR 2.9 million) in contingency funding for the 2018-2019 rainy season.

According to official figures, at least 61 people died in Mozambique in the 2017-2018 rainy season, and another 152,246 were affected, the provinces of Niassa, Cabo Delgado, Nampula and Zambezia being the worst hit.

Source: Lusa