Mozambique: Thousands flee villages as river levels rise following heavy rains

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Mozambique: Thousands flee villages as river levels rise following heavy rains

12:27 CAT | 17 Feb 2020

File photo: Lusa

In central Mozambique thousands of people have been fleeing their villages in low-lying areas to escape rising river levels due to heavy rain, according to the authorities.

Several flooded villages have been flooded and many agricultural fields submerged.

In Sofala province, about 700 families – between 3,500 and 4,000 people – have already been registered as displaced, but the count was ongoing over the weekend in three reception centres in the Nhamatanda area, said the director-general of the National Institute for Disaster Management (INGC), Luisa Meque.

“This is preliminary data because we continue to work to find out the exact number,” Meque said during a visit to the site on Saturday.

Local officials estimate that the numbers are higher.

There is no official record of dead so far, but it is reported that at least one child is missing, according to the survey underway.

Around 8,000 hectares of subsistence croplands are said to have been submerged.

“The water entered [the village] on Thursday night,” said Helena João, a resident who fled with four children. She had to leave behind vegetables in her garden and other items that were to have assured food supplies: “Corn and rice, it was all taken by the water.”.

Manuel Joaquim, another resident, lamented the situation, at a time when people in the area were still trying to “recover from the damage caused by Cyclone Idai” a year ago.

The flood alert was launched nationwide by authorities on Wednesday and passed on at local level, said Joaquim, who confirmed that he had been warned of the opening of the floodgates of dams in the region.

In addition to food needed immediately, residents have asked for seeds to be able to plant crops after the rainy season.

The current rainy season in Mozambique – which runs from October to April – has so far claimed 54 lives and affected about 65,000 people, many of whom have seen their homes flooded, according to INGC data.

Last year’s rainy season was one of the most severe in living memory: 714 people died, including 648 victims of two cyclones (Idai and Kenneth) that made landfall in Mozambique.

Source: Lusa