Maputo, Mozambique — Authorities in the central Mozambican province of Sofala have banned night traffic on a flooded stretch of the Beira-Zimbabwe highway.
The Pungue River has once again surged across the Mutua-Tica stretch of the road, about 60 kilometres west of Beira. The water on the road is not yet deep enough to prevent traffic during the hours of daylight, but, as a safety measure, use of the road after nightfall has been banned.
The administrator of Nhamatanda district, Joaquim Manuel, cited in Wednesday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias", warned that if the Pungue rises much more then the road will be cut definitively.
This would make road traffic from Beira west to Zimbabwe, and south to Maputo, impossible. This is the second time this year that the Pungue has flooded the Mutua-Tica stretch. In mid- February all traffic along the road was halted for a week.
The flooding on the road has already caused serious accidents - at Curral do Pinheiro, 66 km from Beira, two trucks carrying bananas have overturned, and have yet to be removed.
Further north, the level of the Zambezi continues to rise. At Tete City the level of the river rose from 7.06 to 7.3 metres between Monday and Tuesday. The Nhartanda valley, in the low lying part of the city is flooded, and its inhabitants have taken refuge on higher ground.
