Air force helps flood victims

The Zambian government has begun airlifting 9,547 mt of relief food to 39,277 people displaced by floods in the country's Western and North Western provinces. The exercise, code-named Operation Saviour II, is being conducted by the Zambia Airforce at a cost of Kwacha 3 billion (US $625,000). Vice-President Nevers Mumba told a press briefing in the capital, Lusaka, on Thursday that this season's rainfall had been 60 percent above normal. The most affected areas were along the western bank of the Zambezi river and included Senanga, Mongu, and Lukulu. In Kalabo, 75 percent of households lost their crops, while the North-Western province districts of Chavuma and Zambezi were also hard hit. Mumba stressed that food assistance from outside the country would not be required. However, he was concerned that the water and sanitation situation had deteriorated, with notable increases in waterborne diseases and malaria. The problem was magnified by the slow rate at which the flood water was subsiding. The government plans to provide purification tablets to treat drinking water among the affected populations, along with seed for early maturing maize to be planted in July, so that winter cropping could mitigate the food security problem. Mumba also said the floods had disrupted a Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia cattle disease programme, and had led to the concentration of livestock on higher ground, increasing pressure on pasture and the likelihood of the disease spreading.