Panic as rainy season approaches

They say once beaten twice shy. For Tally Losha, a head teacher at Chikoje Primary School in Nsanje, a repeat of the damage caused by the January floods in the Shire Valley should be avoided by all means.
Losha lost his wife to the floods. After DCCMS had predicted a downpour and possible flooding, Losha, together with his wife and two children, stayed indoors, hoping the rains would cease as is the case every year. But the unexpected happened.

“First, we saw the wall making the right side of the living room falling. We were shocked. An adjacent wall also followed suit in just seconds. More water flowed past us and pushed down the other wall. Within 30 minutes, all the walls were gone and we started to run away. My wife grabbed our daughter by hand and I did the same to our son. The waters were too much outside that we could not run further as it was dark as well,” he says, adding that the next thing he remembers is being rescued from a tree, but the well-wishers could not save his wife’s life.
This is the trauma that many survivors of the devastating floods that displaced 174 000 people and cost 106 lives have to endure.
Ten months down the line, there are serious warnings of a repeat of floods in the fast approaching rainy season, which DCCMS says will start in a few days.
In September, DCCMS said the country will receive normal to above normal rainfall characterised by a strong El-Nino. Just last week, Unicef released a statement saying east and southern parts of Africa will be affected by strengthening El-Nino, putting 11 million children at risk of hunger, diseases and water shortages.
“The weather phenomenon, among the strongest on record, is likely to cause more floods and droughts and affect more areas if it continues strengthening as forecast over the coming months,” reads in part the Unicef statement.
Although DCCMS has played down the damage caused by a storm that hit Blantyre on November 16, fear has gripped residents as the downpour, which lasted about three hours, came with strong winds that blew off rooftops, fell trees and left some streets heavily flooded.
Is Malawi ready to deal with the predicted drought, hunger and floods?
With most smallholder farmers banking on Farm Input Subsidy Programme (Fisp), government is yet to distribute the inputs. AsIn January, floods caused extensive damage in the Shire Valley
of Wednesday this week, only a third of the coupons had arrived in the country.
Fisp deputy national coordinator Osborne Tsoka told The Nation on Wednesday that his office received coupons for 687 900 beneficiaries and 812 100 will have to wait for theirs to arrive in the country. It is the same story in dispatching the inputs. A distribution status report indicates that out of 150 000 metric tonnes (MT), only 25 703 MT have been distributed to various districts nationwide.
Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development Allan Chiyembekeza admits that government has suffered major hiccups on the programme, but is optimistic that it will end well.
Also dragging is preparedness towards a possible flooding. Despite that several forums held in the twin-Shire Valley districts of Chikwawa and Nsanje proposed lasting solutions such as construction of dykes to control waters from Ruo River and relocation, nothing of the sort has happened.
For instance, in Chikwawa, out of 16 887 households, only 300 households have relocated according to the district’s disaster risk management officer (DRMO) Francis Kadzakoya. In Nsanje, Humphrey Magalasi, the DRMO says 2 300 household are still in flood-prone areas.
Chikwawa district commissioner (DC) Bernard Mandere has pressed the alarm, asking people in flood-prone areas to start moving uplands.
He says: “We discussed the relocation issue at council level where we had chiefs, councillors and members of Parliament (MPs) and we hoped that the chiefs will support us, but we were shocked to be told later that they do not have land.
“I am worried that if more rains come, we will have another calamity. I have asked everyone living in flood-prone areas to move and we are engaging local leaders to facilitate this.”
Jolamu Nkhokwe, DCCMS director, says based on the 2015/2016 rainfall seasonal outlook, the country is likely to experience normal to above normal rainfall, with some areas experiencing below normal rainfall mainly due to the El-Niño, which may result in unusually wet weather conditions in some areas and prolonged droughts due to drier than normal conditions in others.
“Now that we are in the rainy season, for all operational purposes, people need to follow and use the daily weather forecasts and the 10-day rainfall and agro-meteorological bulletin disseminated through various media, including our website, to act swiftly incase the rains are too much,” he says.
Nkhokwe explains on the Unicef statement: “For Malawi, not all strong El-Nino bring less rains. This is due to the geographical position of the country which is also more elongated and it lies in the transition of the dry-prone southern Africa and wet-prone eastern Africa whenever there is an El-Nino event.
“We have had seasons like 1997/98 when we had strong El-Nino, but Malawi had above normal rains and bumper agriculture harvest. It should, therefore, be noted that no El-Niño event of the same intensity may give rise to exact replicate of weather patterns over Malawi,” says Nkhokwe.
He adds that DCCMS is working with different stakeholders in sharing weather and climate early warning information and improve coordination on issues related to disasters.
Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) public relations officer Jeremiah Mphande in an earlier interview asked Malawians not to panic, saying his office is working tirelessly to avoid another calamity. n
The Department of Climate Chance and Meteorological Services (DCCMS) and Unicef warn that Malawi might be affected by possible strong El-Nino hitting the southern Africa. Our Reporter ALBERT SHARRA looks at how prepared is Malawi.
“I am worried that if more rains come, we will have another calamity…”