Mozambique: Bad weather kills five people, damages 3,000 structures

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Mozambique: Bad weather kills five people, damages 3,000 structures

3:26 CAT | 16 Dec 2019

in file CoM

Five people have died and 3,000 infrastructures have been destroyed since October following the rainy season in Mozambique, a source from the National Institute for Disaster Management (INGC) told Lusa on Monday.

“The deaths are the result of lightning strikes and occurred in three provinces,” said Ana Cristina, director of the Prevention and Mitigation Area at INGC.

The deaths occurred in the provinces of Manica and Zambezia, in the centre of the country, and Maputo, in southern Mozambique.

The infrastructures destroyed are mostly schools and housing, devastated by flooding following the rains that have been falling since October in the country.

The INGC needs about 900 million meticais (€12 million) to conduct its contingency plan, a strategy budgeted for a total value of almost €30 million.

The plan foresees three scenarios: the first is strong winds, floods in towns and cities and drought.

The second scenario comprises, in addition to strong winds, localised floods and drought, the occurrence of floods in river basins and cyclones.

The last one predicts the sum of the problems in the first and second scenarios and the occurrence of earthquakes.

Between October and April, Mozambique is cyclically hit by cyclone winds from the Indian Ocean and by floods from southern African river basins, as well as by droughts in some parts of the country.

In the last rainy season, a total of 714 people died and another 2.8 million were affected by natural disasters, in a period marked by the passage of cyclones Idai and Kenneth, which hit the centre and north of the country.

In addition to cyclones Idai and Kenneth, which alone caused 648 deaths and affected about 1.8 million people in central and northern provinces in March and April of this year, the last rainy season was also marked by the passage of a tropical depression (Desmond), drought, earthquakes, rains and strong winds, sometimes accompanied by lightning.

Source: Lusa