Residents sit on a Mozambique military truck transporting them across floodwater that blocked a road in the Boane district late last week. Mozambique battled severe flooding Monday as the death toll after weeks of rain climbed, with more bodies also recovered in neighbouring South Africa. Heavy rains and storms have battered the two southern African countries for weeks More than 110 people had been killed in Mozambique since early October, the start of the rainy season, the National Disasters Management Institute (INGD) database showed, with 14 of the deaths in the past week.
Large parts of the country were still underwater, prompting President Daniel Chapo to cancel his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos as rescue operations continued. In South Africa, meanwhile, authorities said the death toll had risen to 37 in the northeastern Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces — which border Mozambique — after weeks of heavy downpours. In Mozambique, rivers burst their banks and swallowed entire neighbourhoods in several regions, displacing thousands including a woman who was forced to give birth on a roof as she sheltered from flood waters.
South Africa National Defence Force said it had sent a search and rescue team, including a helicopter, to assist Mozambique’s emergency operations. “Severe flooding has now affected over 432,000 people in Mozambique, with 49,000+ evacuated into accommodation centres,” the UN’s children’s charity UNICEF said. The situation was exacerbating already difficult conditions for the area’s impoverished population, “pushing already exhausted communities further into crisis,” said British charity Save the Children. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa linked the crisis to climate change, saying it underlined the need for funding for developing countries, often least equipped to handle the effects of severe weather.
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