Flooding causes chaos in Angola,Mozambique and Zambia

IRIN

25 January 2007

Torrential rains are lashing Angola, Mozambique and Zambia, killing scores of people, leaving thousands homeless and causing severe crop damage.

In the Angolan capital, Luanda, floodwaters are still rising and the death toll has exceeded 75 people, with around 50 others reported missing. About 1,200 families have been displaced and aid workers fear that if the rains continue a wider humanitarian crisis could be provoked.

"We believe that the number of reported deaths will rise," police spokesman Divaldo Julio Martins told IRIN. "And we've been told by our meteorological institute that there is a strong likelihood that we will have more rains like the ones we've had."

The Cacuaco municipality, north of Luanda, has been hit hardest and has all but been isolated from the capital after a key bridge was washed away and other access roads became impassable. Local authorities said they were trying to set up a camp to house around 2,000 displaced people, but the extensive flooding was making it difficult to identify a suitable area.

The rains are being blamed on El Nino, the periodic appearance of unusually warm water in the eastern Pacific that often occurs in December and affects normal weather patterns.

"If the phenomenon of El Nino continues, people run the risk of losing their homes. The rains are forecast to continue until March, and we don't know how strong they will be," Jesus Herrera, a representative of Medicos del Mundo (Spain) in Angola told IRIN.

"There is a problem of poverty and lack of basic sanitation. Homes here are constructed ... [near] the sea and rivers, and with poor materials that can be easily destroyed with water," he said.

The government has set up an inter-ministerial commission to coordinate a response to the flooding. "We're trying to come up with an emergency plan to work out how to get people out, and supply them with medicines and clean water," said a government official on the commission, who declined to be named. "There has been a lot of damage done already and Luanda really isn't prepared to deal with this kind of situation."

About 70 percent of Luanda's population of more than four million people are said to be at risk from the flooding. "But it's a whole series of problems that could lead to a wider humanitarian problem - we have the floods, the destruction of homes, lack of access, communication and with these conditions, diseases like cholera can rise," Herrera said. Angola was battling a cholera epidemic before the flooding began.

MOZAMBIQUE

After 340mm of rain fell within 24 hours on Saturday and Sunday, water levels reached one metre, leaving about 3,000 people homeless in Quelimane, capital of Mozambique's Zambezia Province, according to the National Disasters Management Institute (INGC). Five people are reported to have died.

"The flooding was not 100 percent a surprise for the people. Following continual rain last week, we had distributed leaflets, used cars with megaphones and used the radio to tell the people to expect flooding and what to do," Paulo Zucula, the director of INGC, told IRIN.

"The people knew where the temporary shelters were set up - nobody had to be led by the hand - but it was the intensity of the rains that took us by surprise, and fact that it happened at night was more problematic." He said Mozambique lacked rescue equipment, such as boats, and that most of the country's helicopters were grounded and in need of maintenance.

Initial assessments indicated that the worst affected area in the province was Quelimane, but poor communications and infrastructure meant the extent of flooding in remote areas could only be determined in the next few days.

The INGC has been intensifying its coordination of disaster management in the more flood-prone provinces in recent years, and a pilot study was conducted in Buzi district, in the central province of Sofala, with assistance from the Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ), a development organisation funded by the German government to set up district risk management committees, staffed by local government officials and community leaders.

"In any disaster, 90 percent of deaths usually occur in the first hour, so our aim is to empower the communities to prepare and react," Zucula said.

The rainy season in Mozambique usually lasts until the end of March.

ZAMBIA

In Zambia, rain has swamped at least 21 of the country's 73 districts and is threatening disappoint expectations of a third consecutive year of a surplus on the maize harvest.

Heavy downpours have occurred since the second week of December 2006 in the agriculturally rich regions of Eastern, Northern, Western and North-Western provinces, in sharp contrast to Southern Province, which is experiencing drought, while the remaining three provinces have received normal seasonal rainfall.

Analysts told IRIN the 'feast or famine' rainfall pattern could drastically reduce food production. "The forthcoming harvest season will certainly be affected," Peter Cottan, vice-president of the Millers Association of Zambia, told IRIN.

"First of all, by the late start of the rainy season, then by the drought situation experienced in some parts of the country and, finally, by the current floods which have left thousands of people in need of food, not just for the current season but also throughout 2007 till the next [2008] harvest season," he said.

In 2006, Zambia posted a crop surplus of 1.5 million metric tonnes above its annual requirement of 1.2 million metric tonnes. The state-run Food Reserve Agency [FRA], exported the surplus crop to neighbouring Tanzania and Zimbabwe to pay the thousands of small-scale farmers for their crop.

"We are appealing to the government to immediately discontinue the maize exports because we are not certain of what lies ahead of us. In fact, the small-scale farmers who were selling maize to the millers have since run out of stocks, and we are now having to buy from the FRA at a more expensive price, hence the slight upward adjustments in the market price of maize," Cottan said.

The prices of ground maizemeal and other commodities, like fuel and cement, were adjusted upwards twice in the last month. Analysts said the increases were caused by a higher international oil price and the falling price of copper [Zambia's primary export commodity], resulting in a depreciation of the local currency, the kwacha.

Dominiciano Mulenga, co-ordinator of the government's Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit, said government was yet to audit the flood damage.

"Bridges, roads and a good number of crop fields, which are in their early stages [of growth], are still submerged in most areas. There's fear that if it continues to rain in the way it is raining now in these places, the worst may come before it gets better," Mulenga said.

"As it is, we are not even able to know the number of people affected, but there is no one sleeping in the cold. We did an aerial assessment with the help of the Zambia Air Force, and we are currently interpreting the results to deal with food insecurity that is likely to affect these districts during the next consumption period."

Agriculture minister Ben Kapita said although the flooding was expected to reduce this year's anticipated maize production of 1.9 million mt, it was unlikely that food security would be affected.

"Our projected increase was strategic, as we had increased the farming inputs to small-scale farmers ... we were expecting them to increase production by 30 percent. However, with these disasters, I expect that we will either maintain last year's production or reduce it to 1.2 million tonnes, which is still sufficient for our annual consumption," he said.

According to a United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) official, who declined to be identified, "WFP has not yet been approached by the government to extend assistance to flood victims, so we can't say anything on the extent of the damage or even the impact of the floods on this year's harvest."

Source: IRIN.

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