Maputo has been experiencing new flooding since this morning, disrupting traffic across several areas of the Mozambican capital due to heavy rain — the second such event in less than a week.
The situation particularly affects the low-lying areas of the city, where ongoing sanitation and drainage infrastructure works are also under way, with cars stranded, roads submerged, mud-covered streets and people attempting to wade through sheets of water. Smaller vehicles are avoiding the affected zones due to water levels, while flooding in the suburbs is also disrupting public transport to the city centre — a situation caused by heavy rain that has been falling since Wednesday afternoon.
The bad weather had already left several streets in central Maputo completely flooded last Saturday, with fallen trees and toppled advertising structures blocking traffic across several arteries, particularly in the lower city.
Mozambique’s National Meteorology Institute (Inam) has issued multiple alerts in recent days warning of heavy rain and strong winds, especially in the south of the country including Maputo.
Mozambique is considered one of the countries most affected by climate change, cyclically facing floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs from October to April.
Responding to MPs’ questions in the Assembly of the Republic in Maputo, prime minister Maria Benvinda Levi warned today that “extreme climate events are increasingly intense and cyclical phenomena” in the country, reaffirming the government’s “commitment and determination” to “mitigate their harmful impacts on the social and economic fabric.”
To make Mozambique “more resilient to the effects of extreme climate events,” the government intends to strengthen the early warning system and “disaster preparedness and response capacity,” expand risk zone mapping, resettle populations in safer areas, build climate-resilient infrastructure, and rehabilitate and construct dams, dykes and drainage systems for “better water resource management.”
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“Carrying out these and other actions will help ensure that the scarce resources we have are not repeatedly used to rehabilitate or reconstruct the same infrastructure destroyed whenever natural disasters occur, and instead direct these funds towards new economic and social development projects,” she said.
In the past 24 hours, rains caused flooding in 518 homes in the Manjacaze district of Gaza province in the south, as well as damage to schools and health centres and the destruction of 2,732 hectares of crops. Also in Gaza province, five administrative posts are “isolated,” while in Inhambane province, also in the south, 71 homes were flooded and 306 hectares of crops affected, with “submerged bridges and impassable roads in several districts.”
“Multisectoral teams have been mobilised to provide humanitarian assistance and assess the damage. We reiterate our appeal to the population living in flood-prone areas, particularly on river plains and basins, to follow the guidance of the competent institutions in order to prevent the loss of human lives and material goods,” Levi said.
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The death toll in the current rainy season in Mozambique now stands at 270, with nearly 870,000 people affected since October, according to the National Disaster Risk Management Institute (INGD). January’s floods alone caused at least 43 deaths, 147 injuries and nine disappearances, affecting a total of 724,131 people.
