Floods Devastate Coastal Mozambique

Back to Map Page Floods on coastal rivers in southern Mozambique (shown in blue) displaced thousands of people and killed unknown numbers. Approaching thunderstorms (clouds at right) were bringing more rain as this satellite image was taken.   March 2000 Limpopo River, Mozambique Floods in Mozambique made international news repeatedly during early March 2000. This is the summer rainy season in southern Africa, and flooding is not unusual in the flat coastal terrain of Mozambique. At the same time, populations have grown in recent years, and settlement has increased in the river's floodplain. This year the Limpopo and Changane rivers were especially high because of heavy rains. More than 30,000 people were displaced, many of them needing to be rescued by helicopter from trees and housetops where they had climbed to escape the floodwaters. In early March, the Red Cross reported that more than 250,000 acres of farm fields, including one-third of the year's staple corn crop, had washed away. Even topsoil was reportedly lost in some farming areas. Unknown numbers of people, as well as tens of thousands of cattle, drowned. In an impoverished country with a large population of peasant farmers, such destruction is very difficult to cope with. The floods subsided after a week or more, leaving towns, roads, and bridges demolished. Worries of malaria and water-borne diseases also increased in the aftermath of the floods as standing water and decaying debris provided breeding grounds for mosquitoes and parasites. A longer-term consequence of this year's flooding may be increased international aid for damming these rivers. Already Mozambique's leaders are calling for assistance in building dams that will help control floods in the future. Other regions of the world have suffered serious environmental and health consequences from the construction of major dams. However, in the aftermath of a dramatic and destructive flood, these more subtle consequences are likely to be overlooked. To learn more, see these related websites: News from the Mozambique Embassy in the United States News from the U.S. embassy in Mozambique Mozambique map To read more, see: Environmental Science, A Global Concern, Cunningham and Saigo, 6th ed. Famines, pp. 240-41 Floods and flood control, pp. 347-48, 368-69 Environmental costs of dams, pp. 437, 439 Environmental Science, A Study of Interrelationships, Enger and Smith, 7th ed. Floodplains, pp. 221-22 Soil erosion in Africa, p. 239 Back to Map Page feedback form | permissions | international | locate your campus rep | request a review copy digital solutions | publish with us | customer service | mhhe home Copyright ©2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. McGraw-Hill Higher Education is one of the many fine businesses of the The McGraw-Hill Companies.