The Mozambique Red Cross has this week mustered all its forces in the north of the country in a so-far successful bid to help avert another major flood disaster.
The National Society, whose experience of flood preparedness and response is among the most extensive in Africa, has fielded more than 400 volunteers in several affected provinces – including an aquatic team that has rescued at least 200 people from low-lying areas.
The Red Cross has assisted in emergency evacuations and provided tents, tarpaulins, plastic sheets, mosquito nets, mattresses and other assistance to hundreds of families in Sofala, Manica, Inhambane, Zambezia and Tete.
“We still have stocks and volunteers in reserve in the north, but now we badly need cash to keep the logistics going,” said Fernanda Teixeira, secretary general of the Mozambique Red Cross.
“Supplies have to be trucked from Beira to Caia,” she points out, “and we need money for fuel or haulage.
“We’re also planning to take on two local professionals in watsan and logistics, and we have extra per diems to pay as people are off-base.”
The International Federation is finalizing arrangements for one million Swiss francs in emergency funds to be transferred to the region’s National Societies.
Food security
“Some have said that, in terms of water levels, these floods are actually worse than 2001,” says Teixeira. “But now, generally speaking, fewer people are vulnerable.”
“The government has been discouraging people from returning to dangerous riverside locations to live,” Teixeira adds, “and everyone agrees established resettlement areas have to be made viable. For example, they need much better health facilities.
“The latest official figure we have for the number of people affected in this emergency is 60,000, including displaced.
“We still have little idea how much damage there’s been to infrastructure, and we are all very concerned about food security.”
Because of past flooding and displacement, the food situation in Zambezia province is believed to be especially bad. Teixeira quotes UN figures showing that more than a million people in Zambezia face food insecurity.
The current seasonal rains – intensified by a La Niña in the Pacific and possibly climate change – has pushed rivers to their danger level and beyond across southern Africa over the past two weeks.
A major disaster in Mozambique seems to have been averted, but only for now: in places river levels are falling, but rising in others.
This could change very quickly, with the rainy season only about halfway through.
National Societies across Southern Africa and the International Federation’s zone headquarters in Johannesburg are braced for a full-scale emergency that could involve Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
A meeting earlier this week in Harare of a special Red Cross task force heard that the latest floods in the region had escaped widespread media attention because of the crisis over post-election violence in Kenya.
“Certain potential”
“We now have a clear consensus from a number of expert and academic sources concerning the current, and more importantly the potential, flood situation in Southern Africa,” says Peter Rees, head of operations support at the International Federation.
“There’s agreement that heavy rains will probably continue until April, with discharges from the Cahora Bassa dam already above danger level.”
Rees warns: “We have to anticipate an almost certain potential for major flooding in the region soon – possibly lasting for a considerable period of time.”
Floods in the centre of Mozambique a year ago killed 45 people and left more than a 250,000 homeless, while Cyclone Favio last February displaced another 140,000. This was the worst flooding to hit Mozambique since 2000–1, when some 700 people drowned and many thousands were displaced.
Fernanda Teixeira says that ordinary people in Mozambique, where a climate-risk project financed by the Netherlands Red Cross has helped incorporate extreme weather into disaster planning, are only faintly aware of “climate” change.
“But they know the weather is changing alright,” she adds. “It is certainly not like it used to be.”
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Fernanda Teixeira, secretary general of the Mozambique Red Cross. The potential for a major flood disaster in Southern Africa remains very high. The International Federation is transferring emergency cash to the region’s National Societies. (p17056)
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