Mozambique will need emergency supplies to avoid famine after rice production in the Chókwè area was decimated by a flooding Limpopo River, inundating 88% of the country’s southern arable land in just a few days.
Chókwè administrator Narciso Nhamuco told Lusa news agency that the recent flooding had reached levels previously not seen, affecting high-level areas once thought safe from flooding.
“Where there were safe places or safe spots in the floods of 2000 and 2013, in 2026 the waters reached them.”
AIM (Agência de Informação de Moçambique) has also reported that Mozambique’s relief agency, the National Disaster Risk Management Institute, has announced that the number of people affected by floods has risen to 724 000.
Nhamuco says 55 000 people, set up in three separate emergency shelter areas in Gaza Province about 250 kilometres north of Maputo, are in immediate need of emergency aid.
He pointed out that the affected area was the breadbasket of the country.
“Agricultural activity has been completely devastated.”
Since the Limpopo flooded in mid-January, spreading across Mozambique as it descended from higher-lying territory in South Africa, about 2 258 square kilometres of agricultural land has been submerged.
According to Nhamuco, 45 750 hectares have been rendered unusable for growing any crops, affecting at least 44 000 producers.
Farmers who can produce are in dire need of seed aid, he says.
