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43000 stranded by floods

Mozambique - About 43000 people are stranded in western Mozambique after a river burst its banks after heavy rain.

Mozambique - About 43000 people are stranded in western Mozambique after a river burst its banks after heavy rain.

Three islands on the Shire River - the main tributary of the Zambezi - were submerged by rising waters, the state news agency AIM reported on Saturday. It said it also had no word on casualties.

In the worst affected town of Mutarara, in the western Tete province, the government had set up four temporary accommodation centres for those made homeless by the flooding. By Friday more than 2 250 people were being housed in the centres.

Paulo Zucula, director of the National Disasters Management Institute, ordered the immediate dispatch of food aid, tents, fuel, chlorine for purifying drinking water and construction material for building latrines to the centres.

The World Food Programme mobilised 120 tons of food for the town. Mozambique experiences frequent flooding.

Floods killed more than 800 people in 2000 and 2001. - Sapa-AP

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