Thousands wait to be airlifted to safety in flood-hit Mozambique

Maputo_(dpa) _ Mozambique's disaster relief agency INGC announced plans to airlift thousands of people marooned by flooding to safety in the coming days amid predictions of fresh flooding in neighbouring Zimbabwe, local media reported Tuesday.

The operation in Mozambique, which is aimed at people trapped along the Zambezi River valley in parts of Manica, Sofala, Tete and Zambezia provinces, was set to begin Wednesday, Joao Ribeiro, deputy director of the INGC, was quoted as saying.

"People are completely stranded in their mud houses. There are schools and health centres completely under water," Ribeiro said.

The rescue effort using three cargo helicopters from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and international aid agency Oxfam was due to start in Tete province, where around 9,000 people are stranded, he added.

Heavy rainfall in neighbouring countries, particularly in Zimbabwe, which suffered record heavy rains in December, have aggravated the floods in Mozambique, which is regularly inundated during the summer rainy season.

By Sunday over 50,000 flood victims had been evacuated from their homes to resettlement areas on higher ground in a INGC-coordinated effort praised as efficient by participating non-governmental organizations.

In some water-logged areas, where roads have become waterways, motorboats and canoes have been used to bring people to safety.

Seven people have been reported killed in the flooding so far, with some believed to have been eaten by crocodiles.

In neighbouring Zimbabwe, where over 30 people have died so far in the floods, authorities were warning of a fresh flood surge along tributaries of the Zambezi, Africa's fourth-largest river, after Mozambican authorities opened the floodgates on the Cahora Bassa dam.

The resulting flooding is the worst in the river valley since 2000.

Devastating floods in that year and in 2001 killed 700 people and displaced 500,000 in Mozambique.

With another month to go to the peak of the flood season, the WFP has laid on three tons of food, enough to feed 280,000 flood victims if needed.

"It will be fine if we manage to have everybody out before we reach the peak of the flooding (in mid-February)," the INGC's Ribeiro said. dpa mm rt cb bve