MAPUTO, Jan 22 (Reuters) – Mozambique authorities on Thursday reported 13 deaths from severe floods over the past two weeks, though the figure is expected to rise sharply, with aid workers saying they expect more bodies to be found as waters recede.
The country has been hit with heavy rains that caused rivers and dams to overflow, submerging towns and affecting more than half a million people. Parts of neighbouring South Africa were also flooded.
Rain had subsided in some areas by Thursday. Some buildings in the capital Maputo were submerged to their rooftops, and the city was cut off from the rest of the country due to flooding on a major national highway, making areas inaccessible.
“I won’t give up,” shopkeeper Justino Zita said, wading through the brown water that had flooded his shop and destroyed his livelihood in Maputo. “We won’t give up but we will have difficulty.”
Mary Louise Eagleton, representative of the United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF) in Mozambique, said she expected the toll of dead and wounded to rise.
“We expect that a large proportion of those who have been swept away or killed by the floods are children,” she told Reuters.
Officials describe the flooding as the worst since at least 2000, when around 700 people were killed in Mozambique.
Early-warning systems and mandatory evacuations could mean fewer people may have been killed this time, said Paulo Tomas, spokesperson for the National Institute for Disaster Risk Management.
“Many people complied by voluntarily leaving the most affected areas,” he said. But he said the lower death toll counted so far may also be partly a result of “limited access to some areas and the fact that several zones remain submerged”.
(Reporting by Manuel Mucari and Custodio Cossa; Additional reporting and writing by Nellie Peyton; Editing by Alexander Winning)
