Maputo province has been under heavy rain since dawn today, with the downtown area of the capital and several neighbourhoods flooded, and the bad weather is expected to continue until Tuesday, the National Meteorological Institute told Lusa.
“This is the result of the combination of the hot weather we’ve had in recent days in the south of the country and the humidity. This combination generated this instability and this fall of precipitation. The volume of rainfall was around 150 millimetres in less than 24 hours (…),” meteorologist Telmo Sumila told Lusa.
The rain left several neighbourhoods in the cities of Maputo and Matola flooded, including the downtown area of the capital, where one of the main avenues is almost impassable: 25 de Setembro.
“This scenario will continue for the next 24 hours. For Maputo, at least until Tuesday the scenario will slow down,” explained Telmo Sumila.
As well as Maputo province, rain is also falling in the southern provinces of Gaza and Inhambane, with a volume of 50 and 75 millimetres in the last 12 hours, and the bad weather is also expected to affect the coast of Sofala and Zambézia, in the centre of the south.
By Tuesday, the weather could improve in Maputo province, but it will worsen in the north of Inhambane and also affect the coast of Sofala and Zambézia provinces, he said.
In a statement today, the Southern Regional Water Administration (ARA-SUL) called for precautionary measures in the face of rising water levels in the Movene and Calichane river basins in Maputo.
“In addition, the retention capacity of the Pequenos Libombos dam has been reduced following the passage of tropical cyclone ‘Phillipo’ (which hit the south of the country just over a week ago). Be alert and take appropriate safety measures,” the document states.
The current rainy season in Mozambique, which began in October, has already caused the deaths of a total of 135 people and affected another 116,334, according to a report consulted by Lusa on Thursday.
Of the 135 deaths recorded since October and until Monday, 57 were caused by lightning strikes, 31 by cholera, 24 by drowning, 20 by houses collapsing and three by animal attacks, says the report by the National Institute for Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (INGD).
The 2023/2024 rainy season also caused 181 injuries, the total and partial destruction of 6,348 houses and the flooding of another 10,473, as well as affecting 652 boats, 26,354 hectares of crops, 5,879 of which were considered lost.
Mozambique is considered one of the countries most severely affected by global climate change, facing cyclical floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs from October to April.
Lusa
