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Minister Joram Gumbo

The torrential rains that have been falling countrywide in recent weeks have caused much flooding in parts of Midlands, Matabeleland South and Matabeleland North provinces.

Hundreds have been displaced as a result.  They have lost homes, livestock and other property.  Public infrastructure has been destroyed as well.

The immediate focus at this stage is to rescue the stricken families, putting them into temporary settlements and providing other emergency relief — clothing, medicines, and food, and so on.

However, after the rapid response phase focus should now shift to medium to long-term response and recovery programmes and activities to minimise, where possible, totally eliminate the risk of flood disasters occurring in future.  The recovery activities come in various forms and will obviously have financial implications on the Government, its partners and to some extent the affected people themselves.

Often our disaster response overlooks the psychological element.  We tend to think that providing emergency shelter, food and clothes to those who survive disasters is sufficient.  While these material things are important, it is worth noting that the survivors need psychological healing from the traumatic experiences they underwent as the disasters unfolded in their                  eyes.

We have had reports of families climbing up trees or rushing on top of anthills or mountains thinking that they would be safe from danger yet they end up encountering other nightmares.  We quoted a woman from Tsholotsho yesterday telling us of the horror of having to fight off a snake that had apparently also sought higher ground on an anthill as she and her children had done.  It is a traumatic experience fleeing your home as all your substance is taken away by flood waters.  In some areas in Matabeleland South heavy rains were accompanied by violent winds, memories of which will haunt those who experienced them for life.

We are trying to say that as the Government and its partners respond to this disaster by providing material assistance, they must not forget to deal with the post-traumatic stress that has affected the survivors as well. Therefore, professional counsellors should be an integral part of the disaster response teams that have been deployed to help flood victims in Tsholotsho, Gwanda, Mberengwa and Gokwe districts.

This must constitute the first phase of recovery efforts after every disaster.  It forms the basis on which later interventions would be built.

As alluded to earlier, the floods have destroyed homes especially those that were too close to river systems.  Sipepa area in Tsholotsho is known to be flood-prone; the same applies to Muzarabani in Mashonaland Central Province.  Fortunately the latter has not suffered any flooding this season but there is always that risk if rains continue to fall there.

So as the Government and development partners respond to the flood disaster, there is the need to rebuild permanent homes so the victims are moved from the tents they are staying in now.  A large sum of money is required for this.  We don’t expect the Government to play a part in                       this respect although it has a responsibility to do so in cases involving orphans and the elderly.  Non-governmental organisations often help but much of the responsibility lies with the flood victims.  Where possible, the Government can permit the people to rebuild their original           homes.
In the case of Sipepa in Tsholotsho authorities will have to enforce permanent relocations to areas on higher ground.  We understand that there was a plan to remove some people from Sipepa to Nyamandlovu area.  Given the ever-present risk of inundation in Sipepa, we propose that the relocations be carried out as soon as possible.  This applies to all other people living in low-lying, flood-prone areas of the Zambezi and Save valleys.  Relocations are a long term solution to the flood challenge.

More resources are required to rebuild public infrastructure – roads, schools, bridges and restore services like electricity supply in flood-hit zones.  Soon the rainy season would be over and people must return to normal lives.  But this reconstruction will have to be undertaken on a national scale considering the extensive damage the torrential rainfall has caused.

The Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development Dr Joram Gumbo told Parliament last week that the rains have damaged 70 000km of mostly rural roads.  These must be rehabilitated as soon as the wet season ends.  The rehabilitation is more urgent this year as we are looking forward to a bumper harvest.

Apart from easing the burden for routine transportation in rural areas, there is a need for a smoother road network to enable farmers to move their produce to markets in the peak period from March to August.

Flood victims have lost all their food stocks and what they had grown in their fields.  There is no chance that they can replant since their fields are flooded.

This means that we already have a significant section of our population that is certain to lack food well before the harvest season begins in April.  These people will therefore need enough food until they harvest in March 2018.  The Government and its partners have to provide it.

The foregoing can serve as medium to long term measures to help victims to recover sustainably and mitigate or totally eliminate the impact of floods on our people in future.