mozambique starts the long process of rebuilding after cyclone idai ravaged the country

by:Runcheng Chuangzhan     2019-08-15
Masane, Mozambique-
As soon as the water reached their feet, the family climbed up a mango tree.
The strong farmer Augusto Blas dragged their two children to the higher branches, while his wife Amilia Augusto balanced on the lower branches.
When the hurricane roared around them, they persisted for three days.
When the water level climbed up the trunk, they stopped about 6 feet to pray.
On the third day, a rescue helicopter flew overhead and threw a box of biscuits.
Blas swam over the water to catch it.
Eight of them. year-
When they ran out of the House, the old son Francisco had been washed away by the torrent.
Three weeks later, when the family returned home to fight to avoid hunger, there was little time to mourn.
A ruined scene extends around the rubble that used to be their house: cut crops, corn and rice fields, they are the main source of food for the coming year, and now they are gone
\"We have to collect rotten things,\" Brás said . \" He took out several rotten corn from the nearby fields.
\"This is everything we have at the moment.
\"The tropical cyclone known as Idai is sweeping across southern Africa and wreaking havoc on one of the poorest corners of the planet.
In Mozambique, which was the first to bear the brunt, it flattened 110,000 homes, flooded the entire town, leaving vast areas of fertile farmland, flooded or stained with mud.
The official death toll is 603, but officials suspect more victims have been rushed into the sea.
The hurricane destroyed nearly half of the country\'s population already living below the poverty line as a major source of food.
In the weeks leading up to the annual harvest, nearly 3,000 square miles of farmland were destroyed.
People like Augusto and Bruce need constant help for a year to survive.
In the weeks after the hurricane, a massive international aid campaign has begun. That effort —hospitals-in-
Boxes transported by boat, food dropped on the plane, and 800,000 people who were immune to cholera
Help avoid the worst.
Rescue workers have some lucky breaks.
The World Food Programme snapped up 30,000 tons of rice at ports in flood areas, providing people with instant food sources.
However, a large amount of support has only been reduced in the short term. term needs.
According to World Bank estimates, direct economic losses caused by Cyclone Idai to Mozambique amounted to $0. 773 billion.
The United Nations-coordinated fund-raising call to respond to the initial emergency costs only $0. 282 billion --
Far from the nearly $1 billion promised to rebuild Paris\'s Notre cathedral in the days after last week\'s disastrous fire.
As of Saturday, $74 million had been raised in the United States. N.
Objectives of Mozambique.
The first victim of Idai was the city of Bella, one of the most important ports in southern Africa.
Wind speeds up to 105 miles per hour, crushing huge dock-side storage silos like tin cans and scraping tin roofs from sheds in nearby slums.
At least 61 people were killed in the city.
On a farm outside Bella, workers scrambled to climb the crumbling fence to stop 26,000 crocodiles being raised there so as not to break them.
Since the emergence of a deadly tropical cyclone like Idai in the southwest Indian Ocean basin, it has been more than a century since Idai landed in Mozambique in March 4, at a distance of 9-
Parts of Zimbabwe and Malawi have also suffered serious damage, with another 400 deaths.
Scientists are reluctant to blame climate change for any extreme weather events.
But in some parts of the world, like Bangladesh and Mozambique, there is evidence that rising temperatures have made the cyclone stronger and more frequent.
Typically, these countries account for only a small percentage of global warming emissions.
In the riverside town of Buzi, 16 miles inland from Bella, residents crowded on the roof due to flooding.
People lived on top of the police station and the mosque for several days.
Some residents said they saw crocodiles swim in the past.
At the Roman Catholic Church, hundreds of people crowded on the altar and sat in their chairs when the altar was flooded.
Last week, the day after the main road reopened, I arrived at Buzi.
By the river, bare
The chest man carried several bags of relief supplies to a small dock.
The water retreated from the town, leaving traces of destruction.
A small boat ran aground in the center of the street.
The poles are crumbling.
A huge baobab tree, with its trunk as wide as a car, was pulled up in the streets.
A man with a megaphone walks on a motorcycle, or is playing football. “Ole! Ole! ” —
Then urge residents to \"get vaccinated!
Fight cholera.
Some people rallied and rebuilt.
Joaquin Cuahanha drove an axe into the trunk of a fallen coconut tree and carved out new planks to rebuild his home.
He is worried about feeding four children. He smiled.
\"Now, all we need to do is go back to work.
\"The others looked shocked, like the staff at the Papoila stationery store, and rescued what they could get from its unoccupied wreckage.
The next day Augusto arrived in Buzi.
She left her family and mango trees and walked along the muddy path for two hours, through the fields of stagnant water, in a rickety wooden canoe, and the water was too deep.
She took a neighbor, Esther Kalamai, for help. Carama’s 2-
The year-old daughter, Laucina, who was ill with diarrhea and vomiting, was tied to her chest
Worrying symptoms, as they may indicate cholera outbreaks in the cyclone zone.
In just a few days, Mozambique has grown from a few countries infected with cholera to more than 3,000.
The first deaths of the outbreak have just been announced.
The women were taken to the door of a temporary clinic run by Médecins Sans Frontières, which is the ruins of a destroyed public hospital.
A worker sprayed the soles of his feet with disinfectant.
If not treated, cholera will die within a few hours.
It is an ancient scourge, with more than 1 million cases reported in Yemen in 2018, making headlines.
Six in Mozambique
The cholera vaccination campaign has reduced the number of cholera deaths.
According to the World Health Organization, eight people have died from cholera since the hurricane.
A few hours later, a doctor from Catalan came out of the Doctors Without Borders clinic.
He explained that there seems to be no cholera in laosina.
She just needs a good meal.
In the tent, Kalama and her daughter sat quietly chewing a large bowl of rice and beans.
For now, there is no shortage of assistance in Buzi.
So many helicopters landed on the football field in town.
Rescuers say it will take about 40 days.
The mayor joked that she needed to build an air traffic control tower.
Unlike the humanitarian crisis in Syria or Yemen, bombs or bullets in Mozambique have not fallen.
So the operation attracted a large number of rescue workers.
Cuban doctors, Brazilian firefighters and the United StatesS. marines —
And aid giants usually from the United States. S.
And international institutions.
Muslim volunteers from South Africa, dressed in robes with curly beard, distributed tin roofs outside the mosque.
Medical staff from the United StatesS.
The rescue group Samaritan\'s wallet has set up a war hospital. its president is Franklin Graham, a Evangelist.
\"Thank you, thank you, Jesus!
\"Before starting work, the medical staff sang in English, Portuguese and Arabic on a Sunday morning.
The next morning, Augusto and Cama went home.
By the river, they passed several bags of American-flagged mosquito nets stacked on the pier. S.
\"American flag and sticker\"S.
The President\'s Malaria Initiative.
\"They carry heavy buckets full of grain and walk with the gesture of Olympic gymnasts.
There is only one wooden door leaning against the tree left in Augusto\'s home.
Her husband estimated it would cost $200 to rebuild it.
He doesn\'t have that much money.
Augusto paused and finished the story of his son.
\"When we ran out of the house, he was taken away with water,\" she said, with tears shining on her cheeks.
\"We tried to catch him, but he was gone.
Eight days later, the fishermen found Francisco\'s body a few miles from where he was missing.
It is trapped in the leaves of a community of banana trees, on an expanding river bank.
The family temporarily buried him in the backyard of an abandoned house.
The local cemetery was flooded.
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