Скачать или смотреть MOZAMBIQUE: FLOOD DISASTER - RESCUE EFFORTS & AID

(4 Mar 2000) Keyword-disaster


English/Nat

With the muddy, foul waters of the Limpopo River slowly receding, rescue workers in southern Mozambique are moving in to help the hundreds of thousands of thirsty, exhausted flood victims.

South African Air Force helicopters - which along with South African boat crews have rescued more than 12,000 people in southern Mozambique, are now focusing half their resources on delivering emergency food aid.

Rescue workers are confident that most of those stranded by the flood waters have been carried to safety.

But helicopters and planes continue to fly over the flooded plains in a search for survivors.

Each trip brings good fortune to a few starving and weary Mozambicans, some too weak to stand up in the muddy foul waters of the Limpopo river.

As rescue efforts are re-directed to food aid distribution, the threat of disease looms, spawned by the fetid, carcass-filled water and clouds of malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"They are drinking from the water which you can see is contaminated at this stage. They are eating fish out of the water that they are catching and bananas is their main meal at this stage."
SUPER CAPTION: Mike van Wyke, Relief Worker

An estimated 10 percent of the 2,000 people still stranded on small islands of sand in the Limpopo River area have contracted cholera - a highly contagious and often lethal disease.

Already, the death toll from the flooding, mostly from drowning, is believed to run into the thousands.

Tons of aid from a variety of countries and relief agencies are now pouring into the country to feed the thousands rescued.

A serious task when in one camp alone, there are tens of thousands requiring help.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"So the official figure is about 40-thousand people in this place. The estimate is based on food distribution and the main problem that we face are water supply. There are just six little hand pumps around."
SUPERCAPTION: Jean Bourgeois, Medecins Sans Frontier

There are an estimated 1 (m) million flood victims who all need food, medicine and other aid.

The aid effort may well have to continue for the next 9 to 10 months. It will take at least that long before crops are next harvested.

And it will probably take much longer than that to restore life to normal in this impoverished southeast African country of 19 (m) million people.

Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter:   / ap_archive  
Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​
Instagram:   / apnews  


You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...