28 January 2008
Maputo — Further heavy rains in central Mozambique and in neighbouring countries forced the Cahora Bassa dam over the weekend to increase its discharges into the Zambezi river from 3,700 to 4,850 cubic metres a second.
The latest surge from Cahora Bassa is bound to worsen the flooding on the lower Zambezi. The river was rising again even before the impact of the increased discharges from the dam.
Thus, according to the latest bulletin from the National Water Board (DNA), the fall of the river at Tete city was reversed, and it rose from 4.15 metres on Saturday to 4.6 metres on Sunday morning (still 40 centimetres below flood alert level).
At Caia, on the lower Zambezi, the river rose slightly, from 7.05 to 7.08 metres, while at Marromeu, the rise was from 6.96 to 7.08 metres (alert level at Caia is five metres, and at Marromeu 4.75 metres).
The weekend rains have brought a threat of renewed flooding to the Buzi valley. At Goonda, the Buzi river rose from 4.44 metres on Saturday to 4.98 metres on Sunday, just two centimeters below the alert level.
The Pungue river, west of Beira, is also on the rise again. Over the same period, this river, measured at Mafambisse, rose from 6.92 to 6.98 metres.
One of the major rivers of central Mozambique, the Licungo, in Zambezi province, is still falling. At the town of Mocuba, the river fell from 7.25 metres on Friday to 6.45 metres on Sunday (still well above the alert level of six metres).
At least Mozambique no longer has to worry about the impact of cyclone Fame. The cyclone, which formed in the extreme north of the Mozambique Channel on Thursday, has veered to the south-east, hitting northern Madagascar on Sunday evening. Its current course will carry the cyclone across the centre of Madagascar.
Meanwhile the Mozambican relief agency, the National Disasters Management Institute (INGC) is working to ensure that stocks of food for flood victims will not run out.
INGC director Paulo Zucula has been insisting on a single criterion for food distribution, warning that simple hand-outs could lead to a food crisis in two or three weeks.
A meeting of INGC senior officials with representatives of foreign cooperation partners in Caia on Friday reached agreement that families will only receive food supplies through food-for-work schemes. People in resettlement areas are expected to pay for their food by building at least their own houses and latrines.
It is expected that the demand for work will reduce the attraction of the resettlement areas for people who are not flood victims, but merely go there to pick up free food.
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