President of Mozambique estimates repairs will cost $250m
Friday, 3 March 2000 22:49
The President of Mozambique, Joaqcim Chissano, has estimated that $250m will be needed to repair the damage caused by floods. More aid, in the form of food, medicine and helicopters, is beginning to arrive in Mozambique from around the world. However, forecasters have warned that another cyclone could batter the country at the weekend.
The floods in Mozambique have dislodged and moved landmines, posing a new threat to lives once the water subsides, according to the country's foreign minister. Mozambique is said to be still littered with landmines buried during its 16-year civil war, which ended in 1992.
Ministers from several southern African nations met in Pretoria today to try to co-ordinate the region's response to the flood disaster. Aid workers estimate that up to one million people have been forced to leave their homes. Thousands remain stranded by rising waters, with more rains expected in the next few days. As the relief effort continues, the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, urged the international community to do more.
The South African Air Force says its scaling down air rescue operations in Mozambique from today because it believes many Mozambicans stranded by the floods of recent weeks are now on safe ground. A spokesman said that the air force would divert four of their seven helicopters to shore up the delivery of food aid to almost a million people displaced by the country's worst floods in memory. Three helicopters would continue to comb the central and southern provinces in case there were more people still trapped in trees and on rooftops. In recent weeks the South Africans say they have airlifted more than 12,000 people from trees and rooftops to higher ground.
- News At One: Robert Smith, an Oxfam worker, discusses the relief effort live from Maputo
- 9.00 News: Watch the video
- 6.01 News: Sinéad Crowley reports on rescue efforts
- 1.00 News: Sinéad Crowley reports on the situation in Mozambique
