12 January 2008
Maputo — The current flooding in the Zambezi valley in central Mozambique is now worse than the floods of February 2007, and the authorities have even been forced to evacuate areas where the victims of those earlier floods were resettled.
On Friday, the National Civil Protection Unit (UNAPROC) went into action to rescue about 18,000 people in the Jardim and Cachaco resettlement areas in Mutarara district. These areas should have been safe, but they are now threatened by the continued rise in the Zambezi.
Two large boats, one of which can carry 60 people, and the other 30, have been mobilized to ferry people from Jardiom and Cachaco to safer areas near the district capital, Nhamayabue.
Joao Ribeiro, the deputy director of the Mozambican relief agency, the National Disasters Management Institute (INGC), cited in Saturday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias", said that the two resettlement areas had been badly chosen last year. In choosing these areas, officials had failed to take into account the levels reached by the last two major floods on the Zambezi (in 2001 and 1978).
On Saturday, boats will continue to move people from Jardim and Cachaco. They will then evacuate anybody at risk further downstream in Mopeia and Marromeu districts.
The Zambezi at Mutarara is now higher than at any time in 2007. When the latest flood surge, resulting from the discharge of 6,600 cubic metres of water a second from the Cahora Bassa dam, reaches Caia and Marromeu, on the lower reaches of the river, it is more than likely that here too the flood will be on a larger scale than last year.
Further south, the flood on the Buzi river is paralyzing economic life in much of Buzi district. The ferry across the river, linking the areas of Bandua and Guara-Guara, cannot operate because the ramps are under water. This has made it impossible for the main employer in the district, the Buzi company, to move its main product, alcohol. Likewise the raw material for alcohol production, molasses from the Mafambisse sugar company, can no longer reach Buzi.
The district capital, Buzi town, can currently be reached overland via Tica, on the Beira-Zimbabwe road. But this route could be cut at any time, since the river is rising again following heavy rains in both Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
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