Mozambican officials on Saturday urged those living near two rivers in the country’s north to move to higher ground, as Cyclone Kenneth dumped heavy rains and caused some flooding, ONA reports citing Reuters.
The cyclone killed five people and flattened homes around Mozambique’s northern coast before moving inland and pounding the province of Cabo Delgado with rain, fuelling fears rivers could burst their banks and leave huge areas under water.
The National Directorate of Water Resources Management said the Megaruma river had registered a marked increase in volume, causing some flooding in river-side and low-lying areas in the districts of Mecufi and Chiure, south of the provincial capital of Pemba.
The Messalo river was also expected to cause flooding in the districts of Muidumbe and Macomia, north of Pemba, it said in a statement.
“Faced with this scenario, [the directorate] recommends the population living in areas referred to above withdraw immediately to high and safe areas.”
Kenneth slammed into Mozambique just six weeks after Cyclone Idai, which leveled the port city of Beira before bringing deadly floods that submerged villages and vast stretches of land. Idai killed over 1,000 people across Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi.
The World Food Programme warned that Kenneth could in the coming days dump twice as much rain on northern Mozambique, raising concerns of a repeat of the flooding in a region prone to floods and landslides.
“Worryingly, it is still raining heavily,” said Daw Mohammed, CARE’s director of humanitarian operations, who is in the port city of Pemba, the provincial capital.
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