Mozambique: Families awaiting help on rooves surrounded by floods in Boane, 30 kms from Maputo

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Families awaiting help on rooves surrounded by floods in Boane, 30 kms from Maputo

7:03 CAT | 10 Feb 2023

The mayor of Boane, Jacinto Loureiro (second from the right), talks to people in a flooded area that has blocked access to the village after rains since February 7 in Maputo, Mozambique, February 10, 2023. Maputo region since Wednesday has already affected around 14,000 people and displaced 180 families, according to an official balance sheet released today by the authorities, which maintains the number of deaths at four. [Photo: Luisa Nhantumbo/Lusa]

Several families in the district of Boane, 30 kilometres south of the Mozambican capital Maputo, are waiting for help on top of their houses surrounded by floods, Boane mayor, Jacinto Loureiro, said on Friday.

“We have pregnant women and children on top of houses. It is total despair,” said the mayor, without specifying the number of stranded people.

“The situation is dramatic. We have three submerged neighbourhoods”, he told journalists, standing on the edge of the 10 kilometre pouring sheet of water, with a strong current, which covers the road and all the land around it, making it impossible to travel to Boane.

The rivers overflowed with the rain of the last few days and the opening of dams.

A motor boat sails through the area and has already rescued some people caught off-guard by the flood waters and who had found refuge at the top of trees.

However, this vessel does not have the strength to reach the neighbourhoods’ from which families have launched calls for help in videos shared on social networks, filmed from above houses and with water everywhere.

“We are waiting for help from other vessels” or even “from helicopters”, added the mayor.

Jacinto Loureiro confessed to feeling “powerless”, like the other local authorities, launching an appeal for the intervention of the central power.

On the other hand, the urban area of Boane “is an island”, a town currently hosting around 4,000 people who have left flooded areas, he added.

Simão Ezequiel, a resident of Boane, is one of the dozens of people who gather at the place where the water swallows the road: he wanted to enjoy the day off at home, but he has no way of getting there.

“I don’t know how my family is doing. I’m calling, but the phone doesn’t answer,” he said.

In its most recent assessment, the National Institute for Disaster Management (INGD) has said that there were 15 people besieged by floods in Maputo province, among the approximately 14,000 affected by the heavy rains that have been falling since Wednesday.

Rescue teams in southern Maputo, Mozambique, are trying to help hundreds of people stranded – some on top of their houses like these group in the video – due to floods. River water levels continue to rise. Weather forecast says more heavy rains are expected until next week. pic.twitter.com/5ArzHjcitZ

— Zenaida Machado (@zenaidamz) February 10, 2023