Case Study: Mozambique Floods of 2000.

Ben Ruddock 12A

Case Study: Mozambique Floods of 2000

Introduction

Mozambique stretches for 2500km on the south-eastern coast of Africa, bordered by Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and South Africa and Swaziland to the south-west (Picture 1). The island of Madagascar lies directly east, 400km across the Mozambique Channel. The coastal plain, as wide as 200km in the south, rises to mountains and plateaux in the north and west. Two of Southern Africa's longest rivers, the Zambezi and the Limpopo, flow through the country. Other major rivers are the Save and the Rovuma (which forms the northern border with Tanzania). Massive Lake Malawi (also called Lake Nyasa) forms part of the border with Malawi. Moving westward, the land changes abruptly from a narrow, palm-studded strip of beach along the coast to a broad belt of savannah and woodland, then forested mountains. Trees include hardwoods, acacia and papaya. Fauna include the rare, endangered black rhinoceros. There are many regional variations in Mozambique, but generally the dry season runs from April to September, when the average daily high tops out at 27°C (80°F) on the coast, cooler inland. The rainy season lasts most of the rest of the year, when the average daily high hits 31°C (88°F). Mozambique is currently 54th in the highest population category, at 18,567,855.

Table 1 highlights just how severe the rainfall over Mozambique, that caused the floods, was. Between February 3rd to 7th a year’s rainfall fell, i.e. from the table approximately 76.8 cm of rain in four days. Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, although it didn’t suffer flooding, did experience torrential rainfall.

Before the peace accord of October 1992, Mozambique's economy was devastated by a protracted civil war and socialist mismanagement. In 1994, it ranked as one of the poorest countries in the world. Since then, Mozambique has undertaken a series of economic reforms. Almost all aspects of the economy have been liberalized to some extent. More than 900 state enterprises have been privatised. Pending are tax and much needed commercial code reform, as well as greater private sector involvement in the transportation, telecommunications, and energy sectors. Since 1996, inflation has been low and foreign exchange rates stable. Albeit from a small base, Mozambique achieved one of the highest growth rates in the world in 1997-98. Still, the country depends on foreign assistance to balance the budget and to pay for a trade imbalance in which imports outnumber exports by three to one. The medium-term outlook for the country looks bright, as trade and transportation links to South Africa and the rest of the region are expected to improve and sizable foreign investments materialize. Among these investments are metal production (aluminium, steel), natural gas, power generation, agriculture (cotton, sugar), fishing, timber, and transportation services. Additional exports in these areas should bring in needed foreign exchange.

US President Bill Clinton recently described Mozambique as the world's fastest growing economy. In less than a decade since the 16-year civil war ended, the country's economy has been transformed with a growth rate of more than 10% in each of the past three years - almost unheard of in Africa. But at about the same time as President Clinton was speaking in Washington, heavy rains were falling across southern Africa, washing away Mozambique's economic miracle in the country's worst floods in 50 years. Aid workers say the floodwaters, which have submerged vast areas of land and destroyed much of the country's infrastructure, have caused more destruction than the war itself. Since Portugal abandoned its colony in the mid-1970s, Renamo rebels - with the backing of apartheid South Africa - had held sway over many rural areas, but failed to dislodge the Marxist Frelimo government from control of most of the main urban areas. Much of the country was too dangerous for economic activities, and for those brave enough to try, ambushes and landmines were a constant threat. In 1992, when Frelimo and Renamo finally agreed to end the conflict, Mozambique was one of the poorest countries in the world. The end of the war also saw Frelimo adopt a multiparty constitution and pursue free-market economic policies. The new government got to work ridding the country of land mines.

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Although Mozambique remains poor with 70% of the population living in huts in rural areas, the corner had been turned and optimism grew. Much of Mozambique's recent economic success has been to do with the opening up of relations with its wealthy neighbour South Africa. New wealth has sprung up, concentrated in the extreme south, around the capital, Maputo - an area now badly hit by the floods. Maputo is the port closest to the South African industrial heartland surrounding Johannesburg, and South African firms have led investment in the Maputo region. Mozambique's move away from a dependency culture and the encouragement of private enterprise has been widely praised in the West. Billions of dollars of its debts were written off by the West in recognition of the country's impressive efforts to transform itself. The past year has seen Frelimo re-elected in Mozambique's second elections since the end of the war, and the first to be organised by Mozambican officials. A stock exchange was launched, indicating how far Frelimo has travelled from its Marxist roots. In November 1999, Queen Elizabeth visited Maputo and praised the country's move from civil war to peace saying it was an example to other African states and strife-torn nations elsewhere in the world. Now the floods are undoing all the hard work. Roads and bridges are destroyed, crops ruined and hundreds of thousands made homeless. Aid workers are saying it will take two years just to get back to where Mozambique was before the rains.

Floods

At the end of February 2000, the news was full of dramatic footage of families scrambling atop of buses and corrugated roofs to escape rising floodwaters from the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers in Mozambique. Military and rescue helicopters hovered precariously over makeshift refuges whilst flood survivors scrambled aboard. The death toll was at least 500 people.

The international community were criticised for failing to respond quickly. Eventually helicopters were sent by several countries to aid the rescue and evacuation efforts. This was followed by aid donations by both governments and from people in the street, but the international community faced criticisms that aid was not getting through to the north of the country.

Once the floodwaters receded, most television crews and reporters’ left and the plight of the people of Mozambique was dropped from our television screens.

However, their plight was only just starting - the people of Mozambique are now faced with mosquitoes proliferating around stagnant pools and swamps. Food stores and livestock have been lost, disease is rife, and water, sanitation and hygiene projects need to be set up.

Chronology : February

4-7th
Torrential rain coupled with seasonal rainfall leads to some of the worst flooding in Mozambique in more than half a century. Waves of water up to eight metres high rush down the Limpopo and Incomati river basins.

7th
The UN World Food Program (WFP) food distribution starts using food borrowed from in-country stocks from WFP's development projects.

9th
The Mozambique government makes it first appeal for emergency help as in the capital Maputo tens of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes. The worst hit were people living in makeshift homes in the slums around the capital.
The Gaza, Maputo and Inhombane regions are the worst effected with more than 100,000 hectares of agricultural land flooded. Roads, homes and bridges are destroyed, electricity supplies disrupted and towns left without clean water supplies.
Flooding in Sofala makes main north-south road impassable in several places, cutting transport links between the capital and Mozambique's second city; Beira.

17th
WFP releases funds to cover immediate emergency needs in Mozambique.

22nd
Tropical cyclone Eline hits Mozambique's southern coast near the central city of Beira - just north of the areas already devastated by the first floods. Winds are measured at 260km/h (160 mph).

24th
WFP launches first international appeal: $4 million for food and related costs and $2.8 million for search and rescue operation as well as for transporting food and non-food items.

25th
In Zimbabwe, floodwaters force a bus with an unknown number of passengers off a bridge into deep waters, a family of seven drown when their hut is swept away and six tourists are missing after they flee a bus which becomes stuck on a bridge.
The government say they have received a positive response to a $65 million international aid appeal.

26th
Excess water flows downstream from Zimbabwe to cause flooding along Save river. Towns of Nova, Mambone and Machanga inundated.

Limpopo river bursts its banks overnight. Two-metre wall of water sweeps through Chokwe sending floods over a 30 km radius from the town.

27th
Flash floods inundate low farmlands around Chokwe and Xai-Xai in Mozambique.
South African National Defence Force helicopters, co-ordinated and financed by WFP, begin search and rescue operation at first light.
Aid workers are hampered by washed-out roads and bridges.

28th
More than 3000 people are rescued, including all those in immediate danger along an especially vulnerable stretch of the Limpopo River.
London calls on its European partners to cancel Mozambique's debt.

29th
Mozambique President Joacquim Chissano appeals for help to rescue more than 100,000 people still stranded in trees and on rooftops.

1st
By this date, WFP has already distributed an estimated 476 metric tons of food in southern Mozambique and 656 tons to the central regions.
A woman named Sophia Pedro gives birth to a daughter; Rositha, from a treetop. Both are promptly picked up by a South African rescue helicopter.

1-2nd
Pledges of aid come in from the US, the UK, Botswana. Germany and Spain.
Some Mozambicans begin to return to their battered villages, despite warnings of further rain to come.

3rd
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund state that they will increase credits and accelerate payments to Mozambique.

10th
Sporadic looting is reported.

17th
Scaling down of the relief begins, despite the continuation of problems.

26th
The village of Chate (36 km north of the town of Chokwe in the Limpopo valley) is flooded, affecting about half of the 563 resident families.

11 -12th
Cyclone Hudah hits Mozambique, uprooting trees, destroying crop, damaging buildings replenishing floodwaters.

14th
The WFP delivers 122 tonnes of food to the area.

14-16th
The Joint Logistics Operation Centre (JLOC) co-ordinated 282.92 hours of flying time, carrying 380.68 tonnes of freight and 380 passengers.

Impacts

The impacts of the flooding on south African countries may be long-term; they are certainly serious, numerous and widespread; it is estimated that more than 2 million people have been affected by the flooding. Below is a summary of the consequences of the devastation caused by what Mozambique officials are calling the nation's worst ever flood.

Deaths

The total number of deaths caused by the floods is approximately 1000, but this number is constantly increasing as a result of the legacy of the floods, which includes all the problems listed below.

Homelessness

Between 800,000 and 1 million people are estimated to have been made homeless in Mozambique by the disaster, and similar figures have been put forward for occurrences of homelessness in neighbouring Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa.

Displacement of people

A quarter of a million people have been displaced by the floods. At least 250,000 people are living in 96 makeshift camps across Mozambique.

Disease

The World Health Organisation has warned that 800,000 people in the region may experience diarrhoea, cholera or malaria as result of the flood problems, and there are already numerous cases of each.

Lack of nutrition, sanitation and medication

The problems of disease are further compounded by hunger, malnutrition, and the fact that access to clean drinking water, shelter, adequate health care and basic services is seriously limited.

Economic setbacks

President Joaquim Chissano estimates that Mozambique will need financial assistance (at least $250 million aid) until they could begin to harvest a new crop; the floods have provided a major blow to one of Africa's poorest nations.

Food production problems

The UN Foodand Agricultural Organisation estimates that 10,000 hectares of crops and thousands of heads of cattle have been lost. A food crisis may result from delays in seed planting, or Mozambicans will miss the September harvest as a result.

Destruction of infrastructure

Roads, bridges and communications links have been destroyed across Mozambique, hampering delivery of aid and implying difficulties for immediate regeneration of the country.

Landmine movement

An additional threat is posed by the loosening of landmines from their known locations, and the huge setback in the landmine clearance operation that commenced in 1994.

Current & Future Situation

Now that the storm and hurricane hazards have ceased, the international media have stopped reporting on the situation in the country, and as a result, the contribution of international aid has also all but ended. Ironically however, assistance and support for the people of Mozambique is needed in this post-hazard period as much as it was at the height of the floods. The country currently faces a number of incredibly difficult tasks:

Location and collection of dead bodies
Informing families of bereavements
Reuniting families
Combating several forms of disease with limited medical resources
Recovery and re-establishment of crops to ensure food provision
Recovery and return of possessions
Land drainage
Attempts at economic recovery

As a result of the lack of representation in the media of these ongoing issues, people tend to think that the problems in Mozambique are over with the passing of the floods, but in reality, as this list demonstrates, they are just beginning. The example of Mozambique illustrates how natural hazards such as floods and hurricanes can become natural disasters when they impact upon people's lives to this extent; and can disable completely a vulnerable country for weeks at a time. Our further illustrates why Mozambique was vulnerable to a natural hazard of this kind.

Within the last few weeks a meeting in Rome examined the possibilities of providing Mozambique with $453m dollers in aid BBC NEWS 2000, this was what Mozambique had asked for. What has also emerged is that majority of the aid has concentrated on the rich areas of the cities and the infrastructure yet neglecting the poor.

One thing Mozambique can be sure of is that there will be more floods. Once the waters have subsided it will have to consider whether to spend precious dollars on setting up early warning systems and building shelters. Bangladesh, which is flooded every year, is proof that low-tech prevention does save lives. In 1991 flooding in Bangladesh killed at least 140,000 people. The 1998 floods were more widespread, but fewer than 1,000 people died.

One of the reasons the international response was slow was that there is no warning system within Zimbabwe, where many rivers flowing into Mozambique have their headwaters. The second wave of flooding was due to rivers bursting their banks after heavy rainfall upstream in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Yet there is no system between the two countries for sharing information about rising river levels. A river basin agreement would help forecast potential crises and improve the speed of rescue operations.

Disaster Relief Model