Red alert in Mozambique - Testing times for our flood-warning system

Exceptionally heavy rainfall triggered widespread flooding in Mozambique in late January, putting our flood-warning systems on the Búzi and Save rivers severely to the test.

In some areas, 60 mm of rainfall per day and more fell in the second half of January. Crops were destroyed as rivers burst their banks. In south and central Mozambique, around 12,000 people have now been evacuated and 14 lives have been lost.
  
According to official sources, the current hazard situation is on a par with that of 2000, when vast areas were quickly transformed into lakes, people fled onto rooftops to escape the floodwaters and, ultimately, hundreds lost their lives.
 
Now Mozambique's National Institute for Disaster Management (INGC), the local prevention committees and the provincial and district governments are far better equipped to deal with emergencies. On 25 January 2011, the Council of Ministers issued a red alert for the flood areas concerned. Now, aid workers and relief supplies can be sent to the crisis areas more quickly and more easily, Mozambique's disaster recovery plan is beginning to take effect. The communities along the Búzi und Save, where our flood-warning system is installed, were given especially positive media coverage.
 
On 25 January 2011, Joaquim Arota, the new District Administrator, confirmed in Notícias, the country's main press organ: "The situation is under control". To date there have been no victims. People are ready and the well-rehearsed routines function in an emergency. Now it is crucial that people stay on their guard, because the cyclone season, which lasts from mid-February to March, poses another major threat, with the possibility of even more severe storms and rain. However, it is already clear that the years of training with the local communities in the Sofala and Manica provinces that we organised with our partners in the field and the GIZ are already paying off.

28 January 2011