Mozambique Flood Relief 2015 - 2

Further to his last communication, Mercy Air helicopter pilot Dean Yeoman sent this report:

Central & Northern Mozambique are experiencing major flooding. You can pretty much add another zero onto some of the stats I quoted last Sunday! I have been doing survey flights for 'Save the children' NGO since Tuesday and seen some astounding scenes of widespread flooding beyond my imagination. Moz is a very flat country so doesn’t drain easily.

Two weeks of torrential rain has turned thousands of square kilometres into muddy lakes, washed out many bridges, isolated many communities by submersing roads, left this years food crops lying on their side covered in mud and of course taken many lives. In one of the villages we surveyed [Boni] hundreds of people spent 7 days on the only 'hill' in the area – a little mound about 3 metres higher than the rest, in pouring rain and very little to eat. Waters are now receding, but of course many houses have collapsed, food stocks lost and this years harvest wiped out. There are tough times ahead for tens of thousands of people.

Pray for courage for people to face their futures  and wise use of resources in distributing aid. It seems to take so long for aid to build momentum and be effective.

Dean & Kaylene


Here is a satellite image of the storms that bought all this chaos a week or so ago.

And here is a map with the flooded areas superimposed. The dark red area by the number 255 is 20km across and the length is about 140km. So a river that is probably a maximum of 500m has now become 40 times wider.

Next is our on board satellite track of where the heli has been in response. The map scale and area are more or less the same.

 Zoomed in just a little bit more gives and idea of the intensity of the flying that has been done.

Below are some photos taken by Dean as well as others involved in the relief efforts.

 

 

 

All this can get to a point where the scale and impact is lost as every picture just involves huge amounts of water. Unseen though is the suffering endured by countless people, families, villages and whole regions and it's these people we seek to help.

Thank you

Mercy Air team