Floods wash away vital crops

Floods in Malawi have washed away homes and submerged crops adding a new burden to a country struggling to overcome a severe food crisis. News reports said four people died in the flooding last week, and 15,000 were left homeless. "The situation is very bad. Extensive flooding has taken place," Lucius Chikuni, the commissioner for relief and disaster preparedness told AFP on Sunday after a helicopter tour of affected areas. "Thousands of people are homeless and there has been extensive crop damage." Heavy rains caused four rivers in the south of the country to burst their banks. A rail bridge collapsed on the line linking Malawi with the Mozambican port of Nacala, along which much of the country's relief food is transported. Sections of the main highway connecting the commercial city of Blantyre with the administrative capital Lilongwe were under water, and the road from Lilongwe to the north was also cut. Lee Mlanga, the minister in the Office of the President responsible for poverty alleviation told state-owned television on Sunday that the government was waiting for local authorities to provide an assessment of the full extent of the damage. Most of the flooding was caused by tropical cyclone Delfina, but Chikuni said environmental degradation was also to blame. Tree cover has been denuded by charcoal production in a country where electricity supplies reach only four percent of a 12 million population. The metreological department said the low pressure in the wake of cyclone Delfina would continue to bring rains over Malawi for some days to come. Malawi is one of six southern African countries facing severe food shortages, with some 3.3 million people in need of relief assistance. Rains were expected in October, the traditional planting season, but instead there was a prolonged dry spell. Southern Africa is facing an El Nino event this year, which is associated with erratic weather conditions.