Floods bring cholera, crop destruction

A cholera epidemic in Malawi has claimed 260 lives since the end of January when heavy rains swept away homes and farmlands destroying thousands of hectares of crops, according to Malawian government officials. A health ministry spokesman in the capital, Lilongwe, told IRIN on Tuesday that cholera had claimed the lives of 103 people in the southern region of the country, which was worst hit, 140 in the central region and 18 in the northern region. Most cases were reported in urban squatter areas where sanitation was inadequate and hygiene conditions poor, he said. Meanwhile, a senior agriculture ministry official said that 12,905 hectares of crops had been destroyed by floods in the southern region. The areas worst affected were Machinga, Blantyre and the Shire Valley. “A total of 91,536 farming families have lost both their crops and in some instances their homes,” the official told IRIN. He said that families had lost their crops of maize, sorghum, millet, cotton, rice, ground nuts as well as livestock in the floods.