Mozambique hit by floods in aftermath of Cyclone Kenneth

Rescuers were moving in to help people trapped by rapidly rising floodwater in the northern Mozambique city of Pemba on Sunday (April 28), home to 2,00,000 people, a United Nations spokesperson said, as Cyclone Kenneth dumped more rain on the region.

The storm slammed in to the province of Cabo Delgado on Thursday (April 25), killing five people, and has since then pounded an area prone to floods and landslides with rain, fuelling fears rivers could burst their banks and leave vast areas under water.

It was raining heavily in the provincial capital of Pemba on Sunday, which had until now been spared from severe damage. Several neighbourhoods were flooded, Saviano Abreu, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in southern and eastern Africa said.

Mozambican authorities on Friday (April 26) urged people living near two rivers in the province, one to the north of Pemba and the other to the south, to move to higher ground as rivers began to fill up and overflow.

Cyclone Kenneth, packing storm surges and winds of up to 280 km per hour, struck Mozambique’s northern coast just six weeks after Cyclone Idai, which flattened the port city of Beira and left entire villages under water. Idai killed 1,000 people across Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe.

Kenneth could dump twice as much rain on Mozambique over the coming days, the World Food Programme has warned.