Mozambique, battling to rescue tens of thousands of people threatened by rising flood waters, is to receive several more aircraft to boost its woefully inadequate resources, a UN official said Thursday.
"We expect four helicopters and two planes... to join in tomorrow", World Food Programme reporting officer Inyen Udoyen told AFP.
He said the new aircraft, to be sent from neighbouring South Africa, would include a "skyshout," so-called because it is equipped with powerful loud-hailers to provide information to people on the ground.
The news of extra relief came as the Zambezi Valley in the centre of the country faced a fresh flood wave.
The South African airplanes are expected to arrive in Maputo Thursday and should be in central Mozambique to start operations early Friday, Udoyen said.
At the moment, he said "it is a logistically difficult operation, we are talking of moving a lot of people who are spread out".
An estimated 105,000 potential flood victims need to be evacuated from the rising flood waters around the Zambezi river valley in central Mozambique.
Udoyen said water levels in the Zambezi downstream from Mutarara, on the border with southern Malawi, to Caia, where the river and its main tributary the Shire meet, were once again rising as a result of incoming waters released at the huge Cahora Bassa dam.
Also along the water path is the already flooded district of Marromeu, some 300 kilometres (180 miles) northeast of the port city of Beira in Sofala province.
The skyshout aircraft will be used to warn marooned villagers to get ready for the arrival of rescue helicopters.
Most villagers in Mozambique still identify military helicopters with the country's terrible 16 years of civil war, and are therefore inclined to try and flee at the sight of them.
Also on Thursday, Mozambican Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi was overflying the affected areas.
Mocumbi told Radio Mozambique from Beira that "the top priority should be preventing any more loss of lives".
A total of 52 people are known to have died in the floods since they started in late January – MAPUTO (AFP)
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