MAPUTO - Mozambique on Thursday launched an appeal for $23.8 million to help it cope with the effects of heavy rains that have killed 22 people and displaced thousands of others from their homes, officials said.
Minister of state for administration Lucas Chomerathe said the money would cover a contingency plan for dealing with heavy rains and forecast damage that could be caused by cyclones between now and March.
A worst-case scenario, which forecasts more damage by floods and cyclones, would be estimated at $33.4 million.
"We should have some money for emergency assistance but we don't. I am appealing for money," Paulo Zucule, director of the National Disaster Management Institute, told Reuters.
Public infrastructure such as roads and railways have also been severely battered in floods in the last month.
Mozambique is also on cyclone alert and authorities have started evacuating people living alongside the Zambezi river in central Mozambique after rains swept past the five metre floods alert level there.
"From this level the river starts to go beyond its margins," said Mozambique's national water director.
"It is a situation that can worsen as rain continues to fall (in Mozambique and Malawi) and Cahora Bassa dam has had to ask to release more water," the director added.
Meteorologists have forecast normal to above-normal levels of rainfall in central and northern Mozambique, while the southern part of the country was expected to see normal to below-normal rain.
(For more news about emergency relief visit Reuters AlertNet http://www.alertnet.org )
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