EMERGENCY relief workers from The Salvation Army are heading to central Mozambique to help families whose homes were severely damaged by last week's cyclone. The African country was already suffering because of serious flooding of the Zambezi River. The cyclone hit the coast at Vilanculos, 800 kilometres (500 miles) north of Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, tearing apart homes and badly damaging the local hospital. The local prison also blew away.
Major Amaro C. Pereira, leader of The Salvation Army in Mozambique, has just returned from the region, having made the difficult journey from Maputo to assess the damage. ‘Significant numbers of houses have been damaged,' he reports. 'The area’s emergency committee has tried to identify safe places for people to go for shelter, but many are refusing to leave the district, preferring to stay close to their properties and guard what little they have left. We are grateful that loss of life was less than initially feared. Only one person was killed because of the cyclone in Vilanculos, and 50 others injured, although local properties have been severely affected.'
The Government’s National Emergency Services Director expressed gratitude for The Salvation Army’s presence, commenting that there are few, if any, resources in the area for rebuilding. Inhambane Province, where Vilanculos is located, is one of the poorest areas of one of the world’s poorest countries and the reality is that what little they had was washed away by the cyclone.
Following an appeal to International Headquarters, an immediate grant of US$25,000 has been made available to start an emergency rebuilding programme. A team of Salvation Army emergency workers will obtain appropriate shelter materials, transport them to the area and work with the local community to help restore a sense of normality as quickly as possible.
Schooling has also been affected. Well over 300 classrooms have been damaged across the province so The Salvation Army is responding to an appeal by local social services directors by providing emergency repairs to recommence the local créche and nursery facilities.
Relief efforts are complicated by a lack of communication. Major Pereira says: ‘There is no electricity in the town, and phone lines are down. No one can get money from the bank as they have no operating systems in place, but this does not stop people queuing in the hope they will be able to get some.'
International Emergency Services Coordinator
