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Mozambique: President wants residents in Sofala out of areas prone to flooding
7:40 CAT | 04 Sep 2025
Photos: Conselho Provincial de Sofala
The President of Mozambique, Daniel Chapo, on Wednesday called on inhabitants in Sofala province to leave areas prone to flooding during the rainy season, as he handed over 840 houses built by the Taiwanese disaster relief Tzu Chi foundation for victims of cyclone Idai.
“We have to get out of the risk zones, risk zones are those areas that when the rainy season comes at any time can fill up, and whenever there are floods here in Búzi, when people are in the risk zones, it’s not easy to get them out after they fill up,” said Daniel Chapo.
The Mozambican Head of State yesterday handed over 840 houses to families affected in 2019 by Cyclone Idai in Sofala, in central Mozambique, infrastructures erected by the Tzu Chi Buddhist foundation, budgeted at around US$33 million.
The 840 homes were built in the Búzi regions, in Sofala province, central Mozambique, and are part of a package of 2,067 homes being built in the Guara-Guara resettlement centre, in the same district, to support the victims of Cyclone Idai, which hit that province in 2019.
When handing over the homes, the Mozambican president recalled that every year, during the rainy season, residents of areas prone to flooding “have to stand on top of roofs and trees”, with the government mobilising boats and helicopters to rescue them, asking that this should not happen again in Búzi district, one of the regions severely affected by Cyclone Idai.
“It is because of this that here in Guara-Guara we are building these houses for our people (…) We are going to build a community centre for our neighbourhood, we are going to build schools, a place for children to play and many other things to be a future city, that is our intention,” said Chapo.
The president of Mozambique reminded those present that the area where the houses have been built is not prone to flooding, advocating moving the local residents out of risk areas to build houses in a new city that is starting to grow in Guara-Guara.
“No one grows alone, no one develops alone, in order to develop we have to work together among brothers and these brothers of ours from the Tzu Chi Foundation (…) are working for the good of the Mozambican people,” said Chapo.
Daniel Chapo asked the people to look after their houses, calling for a collective effort and unity to build more homes for the benefit of the local population.
“These houses have an advantage. These houses that are being built, even in the event of a windstorm, the roof won’t fly off because they have a protection mechanism. The other big advantage is that when it rains the house usually collects water, through gutters, to deposit in the tank, which allows us to have water,” he explained.
So far, 1,611 houses have been delivered by this foundation in Sofala, which plans to make more than 3,000 houses available in that province by 2026 for people affected by Cyclone Idai.
The foundation’s reconstruction support package in Sofala is budgeted at US$108 million, entirely provided by the organisation, which has been in Mozambique since 2012, supporting the authorities in times of emergency.
Mozambique is considered one of the countries most severely affected by climate change in the world, facing cyclical floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs from October to April.
The 2018/2019 rainy season was one of the most severe on record in Mozambique: 714 people died, including 648 victims of cyclones Idai and Kenneth, two of the biggest ever to hit the country.
Source: Lusa
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