The last rainy season in Mozambique, which began in October, affected some 240,000 people and completely destroyed more than 1,800 homes, according to data presented this Saturday by the Government.
“Throughout the national territory, around 240 thousand people were affected, another 34 thousand homes were affected, more than 5,000 were partially destroyed and around 1,800 completely destroyed“said the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, Ambrósio Sitoe, at a meeting of partners linked to the sector.
He added that “over the course of the 2023/2024 rainy season, ten tropical systems formed in the southwestern Indian Ocean basin,” of which “two reached the coast of Mozambique, namely the moderate tropical storm Álvaro and moderate tropical storm Filipo”, the latter. with strong effects in Inhambane and Maputo, in the south of the country.
Mozambique is considered one of the countries most affected by climate change in the world, and cyclically faces floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs between October and April.
This year, the country continued to experience heavy rains during the month of May and part of June.
The last rainy season especially affected Maputo, the country’s capital, and the president of the municipal council, Razaque Manhique, explained in this meeting that 14,420 families, a total of 65,513 people, were affected by the floods. causing eight deaths and leaving 2,323 families homeless.
“We cannot and do not want to spend our lives visiting stagnant rainwater in the different municipalities of our city. We must jointly seek concrete, scientifically valid and definitive solutions to mitigate the impact of climate change in our country and in the city of Maputo, the capital, in particular,” the mayor appealed, in the same meeting.
The 2018/2019 rainy season was one of the harshest in living memory in Mozambique: 714 people died, including 648 victims of cyclones Idai and Kenneth, two of the largest ever to hit the country.
In the first quarter of last year, the intense rains and the passage of Cyclone Freddy caused 306 deaths, affected more than 1.3 million people in the country, destroyed 236 thousand homes and 3,200 classrooms, according to official Government data.
At the end of last September, the president of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi, called on the population and entities to prepare for the foreseeable effects of the “El Niño” phenomenon in the country in the coming months, with forecasts of rainfall above normal and drought outbreaks.
Source: Observadora
