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The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has sent an assessment team to southeastern Zambia to investigate reports of possible flooding after spill gates at Kariba Dam were opened 10 days ago.
Zambian media reports on Wednesday said flooding had killed hundreds of livestock and washed away maize fields and other crops. Reports also said that pumpkin and groundnut crops along the banks of the lower Zambezi river were rotting under water.
Earlier this week, UNICEF spokesman, Victor Chinyama told IRIN that maize fields along the river banks in the Zambezi valley had been destroyed. He said that an estimated 140 households had been affected by the rising water levels.
Meanwhile, Fedelis Mando, Zambian deputy information minister has described the situation as “deplorable”, and said that the degree of disaster was “worse than expected”.
Mando was quoted in Zambian media reports as saying that more than 7,000 villagers in the Luangwa district, about 150 km southeast of the capital Lusaka, had been affected. He said that this was in addition to the already 12,000 people displaced in the nearby Chiawa valley in southern Zambia. He added that the government had sent emergency food supplies to Luangwa.
The spill gates of the Kariba Dam were opened after fears that the dam would burst after heavy rainfall in the upper part of the Zambezi river.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
