Plan to evacuate Mgidzangcunu families
VUVULANE – A plan to evacuate 68 families whose homes were built with straw on marshlands at Mgidzangcunu compound situated at Vuvulane has been prepared.
This is amid fears that the approaching Tropical Cyclone Freddy, that has already flooded Beira City in Mozambique, would extend to Eswatini.
According to Vuvulane Bucopho Nhlanhla Shabangu, the families were in possible critical danger from the cyclone.
Shabangu said he was yet to consult with humanitarian stakeholders and monitor the situation.
He said the Mhlume Inkhundla centre structure would be used to accommodate the families.
According to Amos Dlamini, who is currently based in Matola City, the cyclone made a landfall at the Beira City in the afternoon of yesterday.
Beira is the capital and largest city of Sofala Province, where the Pungwe River meets the Indian Ocean in the central region of Mozambique.
It is the fourth largest city by population in Mozambique, after Maputo, Matola and Nampula.
The distance between Beira and Matola is 723 kilometres and the driving distance from Beira to Matola is 1 222 kilometers while it is 723km on air.
The distance between the Namaacha Border Gate and Eswatini’s Lomahasha Border Gate is 70.5km.
Cyclone
“I think we have to act swiftly when the cyclone makes a landfall in the country. I will be making constant communication with our humanitarian stakeholders about the impending cyclone. We have to make sure that the people are safe as they will be at risk due to the poor state of their houses,” Shabangu said.
National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) Communications Manager Wandile Mavuso said they were monitoring the situation.
“We cannot pre-empt things for now but we are vigilantly monitoring the situation,” he said.
Meanwhile, a fortnight ago, a twoyear-old child endured 10 hours of hunger and cold from the showers of torrential rain in the night while clinging onto the back of her mother in a tree that saved the Makwakwa family.
This story depicted a scenario that took place in 2016 during Cyclone Idai in Mozambique, when Amela spent four days in a tree with her newborn child before being rescued by a Plan International search and rescue boat.
The cyclone hit her hometown of Buzi in Sofala Province with thousands seriously affected.
Amela was at home with her husband, sister-in-law and her two children, aged six and four when the cyclone struck.
Like 91 000 others in Mozambique, Amela’s house was torn down and flooded.
She and her family were forced to flee.
In the confusion, the adults ran in different directions and Amela ran to the nearest tree with her newborn, losing sight of her husband and other children. On a similar note at Vuvulane, at around 2am on the fateful day, Ernest, who was asleep with his wife in his house built of stick and mud, in the company of two children. heard screams from his five children who were sleeping in another house requesting for help as their house had fallen on them.
The children are aged two and 21. They were eventually saved by police scuba divers.
The tragic incident has shocked the Vuvulane community.
An area covering about 10 hectares, with about four other homesteads that were also not spared, is the home of the Makwakwa family that thrives on farming fresh vetegables and maize, for commercial purposes.
The families’ farm produce were also swept away by the floods.
The destroyed family’s home is sandwiched by the main road from Tambankulu to Mhlume and Mbuluzana River that is almost 100m away from their reed and log houses that was torn down by the floods.