Maputo — Search and rescue operations continued on Wednesday across the flood-stricken river valleys of southern Mozambique, coordinated by the national relief agency, the National Disaster Management Institute (INGD), with assistance from the South African Air Force.
According to a report by the independent television station STV, about half a dozen South African military helicopters are operating out of a field opened in the 3rd February administrative post in Manhica district.
When one helicopter lands, another takes off, carrying emergency aid, or searching for people stranded on rooftops, or in trees.
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One man, named only as Ephraim, told AIM, after he had been rescued, "I thought that the waters would not fill my house. But suddenly I saw a lot of water, and I climbed to the top of the house. I left my livestock below. I tries to save my animals, but I saw there was too much water'.
Ephraim said he had stayed on the roof of his house for four days, waiting for the flood waters to subside.
An old woman named Marieta told AIM how she had watched helplessly as the crops in her fields were devastated by the rising waters. "I ran home, I grabbed my clothes, and I climbed to the top of the house, with the help of a ladder', she said.
According to the latest INGD bulletin, covering the period up to last Monday (19 January), the floods have inundated 72,456 houses, of which 1,603 have been totally destroyed.
More than 105,000 hectares of crops have been inundated. Over 37,000 hectares of these crops are regarded as lost, affecting over 47,000 farmers.
The INGD Deputy Chairperson, Gabriel Monteiro, told AIM that Mozambique's own resources were insufficient to respond to a disaster on this scale.
"So we have friends from other countries, from South Africa, who have come to help us', he said. "But the size of this phenomenon exceeds all our plans'.
Monteiro added that the INGD's readiness contributed to avoiding greater loss of life, particularly in the Limpopo and Incomati river basins, thanks to the early warning system.
"The early warning system worked, by using the community radios, and the local risk management committees', he said.
Although the Limpopo and Incomati flood waters are beginning to subside, there are new threats on the horizon. The National Water Resource Management Directorate warned on Wednesday that a dam in South Africa is at risk of collapse.
The Senteeko dam, on the Crocodile River, a tributary of the Incomati, is showing cracks because of the huge amount of water that has fallen on it in the last week or so.
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This is an earthern dam which can store about 1.8 million cubic metres of water. The dam has surpassed its safety limits, and, if it collapses, the water it has been storing will rush down the river into Mozambique.
That will be a flood of between 2,300 and 2,500 cubic metres a second, in massive waves which could overwhelm towns and villages in Magude and Manhica districts. The main north-south highway (EN1) is already under water at Incoluane, in Manhica, and if the Senteeko dam does break, the situation will become much worse.
Mozambique's National Director of Water Resources, Agostinho Vilaculo, said that, from his contacts with South Africa, he had found that specialists in dam safety are on the ground working to avoid the collapse of the dam.
