Maputo, 25 Mar (AIM) – Much of Maputo and the neighbouring city of Matola are under water, as southern Mozambique reels from the impact of the torrential rain that began falling early on Sunday morning.
About 150 millimetres of rain fell on the capital on Sunday, according to the National Institute of Meteorology (INAM). But by now the figure must be much higher, since the deluge continued on Monday morning.
The culprit was a system of low pressure affecting southern Mozambique. The weather is only expected to improve on Tuesday.
The rains made many of the main roads in the two cities impassable. No passenger transport was operating on Sunday and early Monday. Several vehicles exposed to the rain were swept away.
Some Maputo thoroughfares came to resemble rivers. This was particularly the case with 25 September Avenue, the main road in the downtown area of the city. Buildings located on this avenue, including the headquarters of the Bank of Mozambique, became inaccessible.
Many thousands of households in the two cities found their homes swamped. In some cases, this was the second time they had been flooded in a fortnight – they had been struck earlier in March by the passage of tropical storm Filipo.
The Maputo and Matola Municipal Councils are setting up accommodation centres for the people driven out of their homes by the floods.
As a measure of precaution, many schools in the two cities closed on Monday morning.
Voter registration posts closed, as the brigades sought to protect their equipment from the rain. The posts are unlikely to open again before Tuesday, at the earliest.
Isaque Filimone, of the National Directorate of Water Resource Management, blamed the situation on the high density of housing in Maputo and Matola and the notoriously poor drainage system.
“Due to the population density, the soils are compacted”, Filimone told reporters. “This means that the filtration capacity of the soil is reduced, so that even small amounts of rain are not absorbed, and create scenarios of flooding”.
Outside of the cities, there is now a risk that the main rivers in Maputo province will burst their banks, and the authorities are warning citizens not to try crossing the swollen rivers in their current condition.
Meanwhile, the Mozambican relief agency, the National Disaster Management Institute (INGD), has revised its estimate of the damage done by tropical storm Filipo a fortnight ago.
The INGD now says that the storm affected over 50,000 people. 20 people died in the storm, and a further 71 were injured.
According to INGD spokesperson, Nelma de Araújo, interviewed by Radio Mozambique, the storm also left 149 houses totally destroyed and 2,700 damaged.
Filipo also affected 271 schools and 73 health units and swamped 26,000 hectares of various crops.
“In terms of response, it should be noted that teams from the District Technical Council for Disaster Risk Management have been deployed to visit the affected areas and assess the situation. We also flew over some districts in Inhambane and Sofala provinces”, explained Araújo. “We are working in coordination with the Ministry of Land and Environment (MTA), but also with the municipalities and districts”.
(AIM)
Pf/ad (529)
