A WFP update on the flood situation in Mozambique said that as rising water levels threatened local dykes at Marromeu and Luabo on the banks of the Zambezi river, only one helicopter was available to transport people to a camp at Chupunga. "But, with the accommodation centre just 20 km away, locals are also being encouraged to walk," the report said.

It said on Tuesday that in Sofala province, some 20,000 evacuees, mainly from Mutarara on the northern banks of the river, have been shifted to seven accommodation centres. WFP food rations are being delivered to some 13,000 people evacuated into the town of Caia, further south, by boat or helicopter. According to Mozambique authorities, flooding has so far affected almost 500,000 people in the central provinces of Zambezia, Sofala, Manica and Tete, leaving 77,000 people homeless and 41 dead. Tete province is the worst affected with an estimated 43,000 people already displaced and the Zambezi still rising. "The situation is expected to worsen with heavy downpours forecast not only in central Mozambique but also in neighbouring Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe, whose swollen rivers flow directly into Mozambique," WFP warned.

Working in close collaboration with other UN agencies, non-governmental organisations, donors and governments, WFP is using planes, helicopters, boats and trucks to deliver its food. But the lack of aircraft is hampering the aid effort. With flooding cutting off the main road out of WFP's logistic's centre at Beira to one of the main accommodation centres at Caia, the aid operation is relying on just two helicopters and two fixed wing aircraft to deliver food and other urgently needed humanitarian supplies.