MOZAMBIQUE: CYCLONE ELINE HITS COUNTRY

(22 Feb 2000) Eng/Portu/Nat

Cyclone Eline ripped through Mozambique on Tuesday, battering and drenching an already flood-stricken country with torrential rain that sent swollen rivers racing through villages.

The cyclone hit as the impoverished former Portuguese colony was mopping up from its heaviest flooding in half a century.

Disaster relief officials estimate that the flooding has killed 67 people and displaced 211,000, mainly in the southern provinces of Gaza and Maputo.

As the cyclone headed west towards Zimbabwe, people in the villages to the north of Maputo tried to salvage what few belongings they had left and make their way to dry land.

Radio reports said sparsely populated fishing villages near Inhambane, a coastal town 300 miles north of Maputo near where the storm surged ashore, had been washed away altogether.

Even before the cyclone brought more rain and caused more damage, U-N aid workers said they were struggling to provide food and water for those stranded or left destitute by the torrential rains two weeks ago.

This man is searching for corn in what is left of a wheat field.

In coastal villages, winds tore the roofs off brick houses and blew apart some of the makeshift mud and straw dwellings that many of Mozambique's desperately poor call home.

Those whose homes were left standing were anxious to get back to repair them.

SOUNDBITE: (Portuguese)
"I went shopping in Maputo and I came back and then the rain started and I couldn't make it back to my house. Now I am heading home to repair it.";
SUPER CAPTION: man who is trying to travel home to Palmeira

The recent torrential rains have left about 22,000 people homeless in Zimbabwe.

In some places people are said to be sleeping under tables.

Many of the displaced have a long journey home on foot through swollen rivers.

SOUNDBITE: (Portuguese)
"I didn't want to jump to the boat because it cost too much money. I asked him how much and he told me. I couldn't afford it. I was not afraid, but I prefer to travel back home back by foot."
SUPER CAPTION: by man hoping to travel back to Maputo

The World Food Programme, meanwhile, is using four helicopters donated by South Africa to bring aid to some of those affected by the floods.

A relief coordination meeting was held on Tuesday to decide how best to respond to the disaster.

A humanitarian appeal for 13 million U-S dollars is expected to be launched on Wednesday.

But relief officials are still not sure of the scale of the damage.

Their efforts to assess the situation have been hampered by the bad weather.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We heard this morning from Save The Children that Inhambane has been hit by the cyclone. There's heavy rain. A school was inundated. So we're monitoring this very closely and we were hoping to have an air reccy (reconnaissance) go up there to have a look but we have to look at the storm as well and not get caught in that"
SUPER CAPTION: Katarina Toll-Velasquez, Disaster Assessment and Coordination Team of U-N

The landlocked country has not been hit by a cyclone in several years and there are doubts about the readiness of its emergency services because of a gasoline and diesel shortage
caused by a chronic foreign exchange crisis.

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