Mozambique expects death toll to rise as search for flood survivors continues

After weeks of deadly flooding in Mozambique, many left homeless have found refuge in makeshift camps.

Including a newborn, named after Rosita Salvador whose mother gave birth to her in a tree during flooding in 2000, becoming a symbol of resilience in a disaster that killed 800 people.

Salvador sadly died this month after a long illness at the age of 25.

Her namesake was born on a school desk, the only dry place her mother, Erica Raimundo Mimbir, found after days marooned in her home in the south of the country.

"The water started to rise, and it began to flood. They took me to the hospital, and there was a nurse there. I started to feel pain in my stomach,” she said.

“We slept in the flooded hospital, standing up until dawn. That's when they came to take us by boat to the school. At the school, there was also a lot of water, up to our shoulders."

This latest flooding has claimed some 140 lives since the start of October, with an estimated 100,000 people in temporary shelter.

In the southern Maputo province, emergency crews have flown over swathes of land swallowed by floodwaters, scanning for stranded residents and assessing the damage.

Rescuers are continuing to search through thick mud and waterlogged homes in a race to find survivors still unaccounted for after one of the country's worst floods in decades.

The water has ripped through critical infrastructure - roads, bridges, power lines, and water systems - slowing deliveries and isolating entire communities.

The United Nations said on Tuesday that more than half a million people had been affected in the country of about 35 million.

Children's agency UNICEF said January's exceptionally heavy rains had "triggered a rapidly escalating emergency across vast swathes of Mozambique, particularly in the south".

"The flooding that we're seeing is not just destroying homes, schools, health centres, and roads," said UNICEF spokesman Guy Taylor.

"It's really turning unsafe water, disease outbreaks, and malnutrition into a deadly threat for children. The fact that Mozambique is now entering into its annual cyclone season creates the risk of a double crisis."

Taylor said disruption to food supplies and health services "threatens to push the most vulnerable children into a dangerous spiral".

"What happens in the coming days will really determine not only how many survive this emergency but how many can recover, how many can return to school and rebuild their futures," he said.

The latest deluge is already among the worst Mozambique has seen in years, and officials fear the toll could climb further with more heavy rain forecast.

A countrywide red‑alert warning, the highest level, has been issued over the weather.