By Alex Wynter in Caia, Mozambique
More than 35,000 people have now been safely evacuated in the Mozambican government's boat operation to move riverside villagers to high ground. That number is rising by several hundred every day.
Many evacuees are building thatch huts for themselves in new locations and resettling.
So far, the operation appears to have been highly successful: officials of the Centro Nacional Operativo de Emergencia (CENOE) in the northern riverside town of Caia say there has not been a single flood-related death to date.
The Mozambique Red Cross (MRC) has contributed its own aquatic rescue team, based at Mutarrara, some 60 kilometres upstream from Caia, and has been able to move more than 200 people.
The MRC could certainly rescue more, but although there is no shortage of volunteers in the north it lacks cash for fuel and outboard motors.
Cahora Bassa
Caia, where CENOE is based, has once again become the hub of a major flood-relief exercise, but it may struggle to keep pace with the rising waters of the Zambezi.
Officials say they are especially worried about the Inhagoma region just to the north of Caia, where an estimated 25,000 people are hanging on, partly out of reluctance to abandon their maize crop.
Inhagoma residents are also threatened by the separate Chire river system and they face the familiar dilemma of all subsistence farmers cultivating fertile flood plains.
The whole of Mozambique is watching the discharge rate from the Cahora Bassa dam, currently running at 6,600 cubic metres per second, as intently as if it were a World Cup Final. On this single datum hangs the welfare of many thousands of people downstream.
Observers here agree that although in terms of water levels the floods in Mozambique are already worse than 2000-1, lessons have been learned and a combination of resettlement, speedy evacuation and preparedness has averted disaster - for the moment.
The International Federation is warning of the potential for a major flood disaster across Southern Africa if forecasts of more heavy rain over the next few weeks prove accurate.
The current seasonal rains - intensified by a La Niña in the Pacific and possibly climate change - have pushed rivers to their danger level throughout the region over the past two weeks.
Food insecurity
The Mozambique Red Cross, whose experience of flood preparedness and response is among the most extensive in Africa, has fielded more than 400 volunteers in several affected provinces.
It's assisted with emergency evacuations and provided tents, tarpaulins, plastic sheets, mosquito nets, mattresses and other assistance to hundreds of families in Sofala, Manica, Inhambane, Zambezia and Tete.
Although the operation to move people is working well, the latest wave of resettlement in Mozambique is likely to intensify existing concerns about food insecurity as a result of past flooding.
The population of some small villages around Caia may have doubled in the space of a week as people move up from the river banks.
National Societies across Southern Africa and the International Federation's zone headquarters in Johannesburg are now braced for a full-scale emergency that could also involve Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.