Maputo — Mozambique's relief agency, the National Disaster Management Institute (INGD) has deployed technical teams to monitor tropical storm "Gamane', which has swept across Madagascar, leaving a trail of destruction behind it.

According to INGD chairperson, Luísa Meque, who was speaking to reporters on Wednesday, on the sidelines of the working visit she paid to the households affected by last weekend's torrential rains in Maputo city, "we have already pre-positioned teams in the provinces' and they are "working on reinforcing prevention mechanisms.'

It had been feared that Gamane would head for the Mozambican coast.

According to an alert from the National Meteorological Institute (INAM), "Gamane' could affect the weather with moderate to locally heavy rainfall in central and northern Mozambique.

But the main victim of this storm is undoubtedly Madagascar, where at least 11 people have died.

On Wednesday the storm strengthened and was described in some quarters as a tropical cyclone. But it then left Madagascar, and veered back over the Indian Ocean.

The storm is moving in a southeasterly direction towards Mauritius. On its current course, Gamane is moving away from Mozambique, and so is unlikely to have much impact on the Mozambican weather.

During her visit, Luisa Meque revealed that the preliminary figures from INGD point out that the floods caused by the torrential rains of last Sunday and Monday (which reached 300 millimeters in 48 hours), affected, in Maputo city alone, at least 46,555 people, corresponding to 9,000 households.

The thousands of people flooded out of their homes are now taking refuge in 22 accommodation centres set up by the central and municipal governments.