KEY POINTS:
CAIA, Mozambique - Floods in Mozambique have left 68,000 people homeless and 280,000 more may be forced to evacuate this week, a top official said today as refugees crowded into dismal camps to escape the raging waters.
Boats and aircraft have been used to move people from flooded regions around the Zambezi river, many with little more than the clothes on their backs.
But relocation centres have in some cases been little improvement, with officials saying they are short of drinking water, food and proper shelters.
"I lost everything. Our homes are underwater. The flood waters hit us in the middle of the night (last week)," said Julita Dinala, who had come with her eight children to a camp in Manica province.
"We were rescued the following morning. But now we are here without food and shelter and the government is saying there are no access roads to bring the food," she added.
The floods, sparked when rains from neighbouring Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi poured into the overflowing Cahora Bassa Dam, have killed 29 people and damaged thousands of homes and schools, mainly in the central Zambezia and Sofala provinces.
Experts fear the crisis could surpass the devastating floods of 2000 and 2001, which killed 700 people, displaced half a million and wrecked infrastructure.
"We expect more water than we had in 2001. ... The situation is deteriorating and it will get worse but this time we are better prepared than in 2001," Paulo Zucula, head of Mozambique's national relief agency INGC, told Reuters.
Zucula was speaking in Caia, one of the worst hit areas, some 1,400 kilometres north of the capital Maputo.
He said around 27,000 people had been moved to accommodation centres and around 41,000 others had no shelter after their homes were submerged.
As many as 280,000 more people -- mostly poor rural folk who live in tiny mud huts and survive by growing vegetables and livestock -- would probably be forced from their homes this week as more rains swept the southern African country, Zucula said.
Many face homelessness for the second time after the floods six years ago wrecked their homes.
Andre Awade, the district administrator in Nhaclo in Tete province, said some people were reluctant to evacuate because relocation centres were so poorly supplied, with some lacking even chlorine to clean drinking water and fuel for the boats.
"We have done much of the rescue work ... but in some islands there is resistance because people have lost most of their belongings, so they want to keep whatever is left."
In Chapunga, in Sofala, around 600 people flocked to an accommodation centre but tents are scarce and many are sleeping in the open.
Marco Mabuleza said local residents were caught between the dangers of the Zambezi flood plain -- which include crocodiles -- and the rocky, poor soil in higher elevations.
"We came here by boat. We couldn't bring anything. We have no food, no shelter, and it is raining heavily. We have been here for a week without assistance," he said.
"If we go to the high areas there is drought and the ground is rocky. If we go to the lower Zambezi there are crocodiles. So we prefer to face the crocodiles and floods because our problem is hunger."
- REUTERS
