Chikwawa, southern Malawi, Jan. 14 (MaraviPost) _ The Malawi Army Wednesday joined a rescue operation of hundreds of people whose villages have been cut off from the rest of the country by raging floods in the southern Lower Shire Valley district of Chikwawa, some 50 kilometres from the commercial capital, Blantyre, the district administration and police have confirmed.
“We will work until we rescue everyone, some villagers are up in trees, others are stranded in isolated higher grounds, we are racing against time since it is still raining,”
District Commission Alex Mdoko told MMaravi Post Wednesday evening from the marooned Mwananjovu Village, some 20 kilometres south of the district headquarters.
Mdoko said an unknown number of villagers are feared dead after being washed away by the floods.
“Traditional leaders organised dug-out canoes to try to rescue the stranded people but due to overloading a number of the canoes capsized. We are not sure how many are dead, we keep hearing different figures, we will know after accounting for everyone,” he said.
Meanwhile, five bodies have already been pulled out from the raging waters, according to Chikwawa Police Officer-in-Charge MacMillan Nyirongo.
Issa Bande, who managed to flee to the district headquarters, said when Mwananjovu was flooded, some people managed to climb trees.
“Some tree branches snapped, tossing people back into the water, some trees were uprooted by the water, some people got tired or fell asleep up there and fell back into the water. It’s a terrible situation,” he said.
Mwananjovu and surrounding villages was flooded after Shire River, Malawi’s largest and longest river and pours its water into the Zambezi in neighbouring Mozambique, burst its banks. The Shire is about 15 kilometres from the villages.
Police and the army are working hand-in-hand in the rescue mission. Four boats from the Malawi Army Marine Unit in the southern town of Liwonde, some 120 kilometres east of Blantyre, are involved in the rescue and recovery mission.
“We will work overnight; we want to account for everyone,” said Mdoko, the District Commissioner.
Meanwhile, MaraviPost visited two temporary Internal Displace People (IDP) camps in the district. Thousands of people whose houses were washed away in some 50 camps provided by the Malawi Red Cross and Red Crescent Society and the medical charity, Medicine Sans Frontiers (MSF).
“We are 1,351 people here,” said Group Village Headman Sekeni 1 whose Sekeni 1 Village was flooded over the weekend. “It has been raining for two weeks non-stop. Several houses were destroyed, we lost goats, chicken and cows. Our crops of maize, cotton and millet are also under water. We have lost everything!”
The other camp, about 500 metres away, also has similar number of IDPs.
The two charities are providing the IDPs with simple meals of maize meal and beans. The nearby Illovo Sugar Company is providing water.
Meanwhile, in the capital, Lilongwe, Commissioner Paul Chiunguzeni told journalists the official death toll as of Wednesday remains 48 with 19 people missing after their villagers were washed away.
President Peter Mutharika on Tuesday declared ten districts ‘disaster areas’ and appealed for international assistance.
Former president Joyce Banda, currently on a speaking tour in the US, has commended Mutharika for declaring a ‘State of Disaster’.
“This declaration will ensure speedy mobilisation of humanitarian assistance from local and international well-wishers to alleviate the suffering that the victims are currently facing,” she said in a statement.-maravipost
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