14 January 2008
Maputo — A second flood surge down the Save river has once again inundated the town of Nova Mambone, capital of Govuro district, in the southern Mozambican province of Inhambane.
The Save burst its banks on Saturday. The level of the river rose rapidly to 7.5 metres, two metres above the flood alert level of 5.5 metres. The river has not risen as high as during the first flood on the Save on 31 December, when it was measured at 7.98 metres. This second flood has been blamed on continuing torrential rains in Zimbabwe.
Monday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias" reports that all the neighbourhoods of Nova Mambone have been flooded. Most of the town had already been evacuated during the earlier flood, and at the end of last week there were 3,500 people living in two accommodation centres set up by the local government.
Work on evacuating people still living in dangerous areas in the Zambezi valley continued over the weekend. By Sunday over 62,000 people had been evacuated to safe areas.
Some people did not want to leave - even though the flood waters had already entered their homes. One old woman in Caia district, on the south bank of the Zambezi, told a crew from the independent television station STV that she was quite all right and wanted to be left alone, even though the water in her hut was about half a metre deep.
In cases such as this, force has been used. The government's relief agency, the National Disasters Management Institute (INGC), has used the armed forces to ensure that evacuation from dangerous areas is complete.
The INGC deputy director, Joao Ribeiro, admitted "the greatest problem we face concerns people who still do not recognize the danger they are in, and so keep going back to areas of risk".
As the population in the accommodation centres rises, so the INGC and its partners (such as the World Food Programme, and NGOs such as Oxfam and save the Children), are working to ensure that food, clean water and decent sanitation are available for people displaced by the floods, Latrines are being dug and chlorine distributed to purify water.
In its latest bulletin, the National Water Board (DNA) warns that the situation could worsen over the next couple of days in both the Save and Zambezi basins.
There is also a new threat on one of the main southern rivers, the Limpopo, During the weekend, the Limpopo rose by two metres in 24 hours at Combumune, so that by Sunday it had surpassed the flood alert level.
However the DNA predicts that the level of the Limpopo will now stabilize, which would mean there is little threat to the two major population centres further downstream, Chokwe and Xai-Xai.
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