Mozambique: Limpopo rail line from south to Zimbabwe closed due to flooding

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Mozambique: Limpopo rail line from south to Zimbabwe closed due to flooding

7:24 CAT | 28 Feb 2023

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: RM]

The railway line linking Gaza province, in southern Mozambique, and neighbouring Zimbabwe has had to be closed to traffic to flooding, a spokesman for Mozambique’s state-owed rail operator Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique (CFM) told Lusa on Tuesday.

“The Limpopo line has been inactive since the 24th [last Friday] and heavy rain is making it difficult to re-establish circulation,” said the spokesman, Adélio Dias.

Work is underway to re-establish train services, he said, but the floods make it “impractical to set dates for the re-establishment” of traffic on the line that links Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

Speaking to Mozambique’s public broadcaster Rádio Moçambique, the administration of the Limpopo line, Cassilda Banze, said that several stretches had been closed to rail traffic by flooding.

She warned of the risk of food shortages in districts in the region that depend on rail services for the supply of essential products.

In Mozambique, flooding is recurrent at this time of year, but rainfall has been higher than expected since the beginning of the month.

Another rail route, the Goba line, which links Mozambique and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) in the far south of the country, was reopened on Monday after being closed for about two weeks due to a landslide caused by heavy rain.

Source: Lusa