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dam-l Mozambique floods on ENS/LS
This gives a bit more info on overflowing dams increasing the disaster's
impacts in Mozambique...
Weary Pilots Try to Evacuate Flooded Mozambique
MAPUTO, Mozambique, February 29, 2000 (ENS) - Severe
flooding and a wave of tropical cyclones have left
Mozambique struggling to cope with one of its worst ever
natural disasters.
Foreign Minister Leonardo Simao said that the flooding has
caused at least 70 deaths, and affected at least 300,000 people in
seven of the country's 11 provinces. These are people who
have lost their homes or livelihoods, and are in need of immediate
assistance. He appealed to the international community for
$65.5 million.
"The entire population in the affected areas is either in
water up to their necks or stranded in treetops," said United Nations
World Food Programme (WFP) logistics officer Asfaw Ayelign.
"Before we even give them food, we have to get them to
safety. The priority is to get them to a place where they
can be cared for."
In some
villages thousands of people are living
precariously
huddled in the few public buildings
still above
water and other makeshift shelters.
Most have lost
their homes, crops, livestock,
and personal
possessions.
The weather has
improved for air rescue
operations
across Mozambique, where only
scattered
showers are expected the next few
days. But
releases of water from dams upstream
threaten to
bring more flooding.
The WFP warned
today that the situation is
worsening and
that people will increasingly run
the risk of
illness and starvation if humanitarian
assistance is not immediately expanded.
"With more water coming the disaster could spread much
wider. Thousands of people are stranded, some on rooftops, in trees,
on anything they can cling too," said Jean-Jacques Graisse,
WFP assistant executive director and director of operations.
"International donor support is immediately needed if we are
to save lives."
Inadequate air transport facilities could lead to the loss
of great numbers of lives in Mozambique, the International Federation
of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies warned on Monday.
With only five South African army helicopters involved in
rescue efforts, hundreds of thousands of people continue to
be stranded across southern Mozambique. The funds to keep the
helicopters operating have now run out. The situation is
deteriorating rapidly as flood levels continue to rise.
The most critically hit areas are inaccessible by road, as
the heavy flood waters washed away entire sections of the country's
main transportation network and completely submerged many
secondary roads reported WFP staff in the field. Private trucks
attempting to ferry commercial food supplies and other
urgent items such as water, fuel, and kerosene are reportedly getting
stuck en route.
Using a fleet of seven helicopters and five
aircraft from the South African National
Defense Force, WFP has already shuttled some
1,200 metric tons of maize, pulses, sugar and
oil to over 50 key delivery points in badly hit
districts. The food is being distributed to over
100,000 people with the help of local
authorities, non-governmental agencies, church
groups, and area residents.
The agency is using the helicopter fleet to run
search and rescue missions to pluck survivors
from the waters and deposit them on higher ground.
Over the past five days, an additional four to
eight meters of flood waters have engulfed the
country's hardest hit areas caused by an overflowing of dams
in Southern Africa and Zimbabwe.
The opening of the spillway gates of the Kariba dam on the
Zambezi River yesterday will cause further flooding.
In response to the growing crisis, WFP is launching a
massive emergency aid operation for the country - and potentially the
region. The food aid agency already estimates that immediate
support is required to search, rescue and care for up to 300,000
people.
As an initial step, WFP has asked donors to fund a $4
million feeding operation, which was approved on February 24, to
ensure food supplies for approximately 110,000 people for
the next three months. A further $2.8 million special operation
has been approved for WFP to increase its air power to
search and rescue survivors, as well as transport food and non-food
aid. But WFP will need even further support from donors for
the bigger operation that will follow.
A large WFP team is spread out throughout the country's
southern and central regions to run the logistics operation, oversee
food distributions, monitor the conditions of the people and
report on other humanitarian needs that are developing as the
crisis continues.
WFP staff working in Beira, Mozambique's largest and busiest
port, reported that cyclone Elina sank four ships docked in the
port's channel. As a result, port activities have been
severely hampered. WFP has 365 tons emergency food supplies waiting
to be cleared from the port for emergency distribution in
flood-struck areas in the central region of the country.
"The situation for these people, particularly those who are
still stranded, is quickly deteriorating," Graisse said. "This disaster
is of epic proportions and we urgently need donor support if
we are to expand our operations to meet all the needs."
WFP is the United Nations' front-line agency in the fight
against global hunger. In 1999 WFP fed more than 88 million
people in 82 countries including most of the world's
refugees and internally displaced people.
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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