MAPUTO (Reuters) - Mozambican government's relief agency INGC said on Wednesday it was seeking emergency aid to provide temporary shelter for 15,000 people displaced by floods in the central Sofala province last week.
The extent of the damage wrought by the flooding on Friday and Saturday, in which three people were killed, only became apparent late on Tuesday after a tour by the government's relief agency, INGC officials said.
The floods displaced peasants near the port city of Beira as well as uprooting people from the densely populated Beira suburbs of Macurungo, Munhava, Chota, Muchatazima, and Inhamudima, INGC Sofala official Antonio Chicumbe said.
"The rains have stopped but many children, women, and the elderly are still living in the open since their houses were either submerged or washed away, and their belongings, including food stocks, were lost," Chicumbe told Reuters.
Mozambique was hit by cyclones Delfina and Japhet earlier this year, which killed scores of people and made thousands homeless. Massive floods in 2000 killed thousands of people.