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U.S. Helps Mozambique Prepare For, and Recover From, Floods
FrontLines - November 2009
CHOKWE, Mozambique—
When a 20-foot deep blanket
of water unleashed by a cyclone
swept across the vast, low-lying
plains along the Limpopo River
in 2000, Jaime Mussa, 47, fled
into a tree with his wife and
children.
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This family in a low-lying village about a four-hour drive from Maputo, received $100 from USAID to rebuild their dwelling after the 2000 floods.
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“I was terrified—it was the
first time I saw something like
this,” he said recently as he
tended his restored clothing shop
in the market here. “That day,
God gave me the strength to get
to the tree. There were snakes
and garbage in the water.”
Helicopters brought his family
to high ground as hundreds
of thousands of people were displaced
and about 800 died.
Yet when another flood
spread across the Zambeze River
plains north of here in 2007,
an emergency response plan
supported by USAID and the
Mozambique government rushed
113,000 people to high ground
before lives could be lost.
“USAID mainly helped with
the early warning system—this
was very important and saved
lives,” said João Ribeiro, director
general of the National Disaster
Institute in Mozambique.
In an interview, he said
that flooding hit the Zambeze
region again in 2008 “that was
worse than 2000, but we could
warn people in time and moved
89,000 people” to safety.
A visitor can readily see the
risk people face in Mozambique.
A few hours’ drive north of
Maputo, the land suddenly drops
about 100 feet and unrolls flat as
far as the eye can see, pierced by
rivers heading towards the ocean.
When these rivers flood, there is
no nearby high ground to run to.
Ribeiro’s institute has—since
2000—set up a way to cope with
floods. He receives reports from
USAID’s Famine Early Warning
System (FEWSNET) that uses
satellite imaging to spot rising
flood waters. Then he sends out
alerts to even the most distant
rural families through community
radio stations.
With advance warning, people
can bring their goats and other
animals with them to prepared
high ground sites. USAID supplies
plastic sheeting for shelters,
mosquito nets, water purification,
and other emergency supplies.
Other donors have provided
rubber boats and bicycles so
trained emergency workers could
spread the alarm of flooding.
In the long run, said Ribeiro,
the government plans to resettle
people on higher ground where
they could switch to arid land
crops and leave the lowlands
for grazing.
USAID also gave cash grants
to 115,000 people affected by the
2000 floods. A helicopter flew in
the cash after waters destroyed
the bridge over the Limpopo.
Rosa Valenti Machava, 55,
showed visitors her three small
mud huts in the community of
Josina Island—rebuilt after the
floods with a $100 USAID grant.
A neighbor used her U.S. grant
to buy clothes and school books
for her five children.
At the Rosa D’Ouro Bakery
in Chokwe, 36 workers kneaded
and shaped balls of dough for
the tasty brown rolls coming out
of an oven. The business was
restored with a USAID loan after
20 feet of water swamped the
business in 2000. Some $25 million
in loans to 250 businesses
was given out and then repaid.
The railroad leading from
Maputo to the Zimbabwe border
also was rebuilt with USAID
funding after the floods undercut
the road bed. Now the daily train
to Zimbabwe leaves Maputo
Station around 1 p.m. each day. .
★
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by the Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs
U.S. Agency for International Development
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