Johannesburg — Recent heavy rains and flooding have forced more than 200,000 Mozambicans into accommodation centres around the country, a UN spokeswoman in Maputo told IRIN on Wednesday. "This is dramatic increase. A few weeks ago there were between 80,000 and 90,000 people. Now we have more than 200,000," Francis Christie said.
"We have to remember that water levels have been high for about a month now and people's crops have been submerged and whatever food stocks they had could be running out by now. During last year's floods we discovered that people were in fact better off in the accommodation centres than in their villages," Christie noted. Mozambique's displaced are sheltering in 70 accommodation centres, mostly in the Zambezi valley. However, there are also a number of centres in the provinces of Zambezia, Sofala and Manica.
According to Christie conditions at the centres had "improved" in the last few days because of the arrival of sanitation equipment. "We do have sufficient stocks of the basics such as food and water. The problem is logistical. Many of the roads are still not completely passable and many of the small bridges have been washed away so transportation of aid is a problem," Christie noted.
"We have no major health problems at this stage, although there have been reports of people coming to the centres with fevers which could be an indication of malaria." Christie said that with regard to reports about high malnutrition rates, "it had to be remembered that malnutrition rates in Mozambique are normally quite high".
"With this mind we have had reports about flood-related malnutrition and for example a survey conducted in the northern Tete province showed a malnutrition rate of about 8 percent in children. But like I said we have to remember that malnutrition rates are normally quite high," she added.
Meanwhile on Monday authorities at the Cabora Bassa dam said the water level of the reservoir was continuing to rise and that a fifth floodgate might have to be opened, causing more flooding in the Zambezi river valley. A national water board (DNA) official was quoted as saying that more water was entering the dam than was being discharged.
By late Monday the water level at the dam wall was 327.38 metres, higher than the capacity of 326 metres. In the central Zambezia province, the local branch of the government's disaster management authority issued fresh warnings to people living on the north bank of the Zambezi.
