ANGOLA: Flooding leaves at least 10,000 homeless

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

LUANDA, 18 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - Flooding in Angola's northern Kwanza Norte province has left at least 10,000 people without shelter and created conditions ripe for malaria and diarrhoeal diseases.

A United Nations team returning from the affected area said local government, with the support of the Ministry for Assistance and Social Reintegration (MINARS), was managing to get urgent assistance to the area, but people remained vulnerable.

"We're not talking about a large-scale disaster with widespread consequences, but there are urgent needs that are not being met," said Matthew Olins, senior field coordinator at the Transitional Coordination Unit in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

"Fortunately there have been no cases of cholera reported, but the conditions do exist, which could lead to an increased incidence of malaria, diarrhoeal disease and water-borne skin infections," he told IRIN.

The province has suffered heavier rains than normal this wet season. Rains in mid-December and late January destroyed 312 houses and left a reported 1,140 people homeless.

The most recent downpours on 11 March brought the total to 769 ruined homes and a further 1,799 left uninhabitable, leaving an estimated 9,965 people without shelter.

"We could not verify those numbers but, based on the places we visited, the data seem credible," Olins said.

People were living with neighbours or families, or were being temporarily housed in tented camps or makeshift shelters, he added.

Local officials and state media reported that another 4,000 people in Massangano, about 30 kilometres south of Dondo in Kwanza Norte, had lost their homes, while heavy rain in the province of Bengo, north of Luanda, was also causing concern.

Although the local administration and provincial government in Dondo were coping well, Olins said there was room for humanitarian partners to help.

"One very encouraging sign is that the government is showing an ability to rely on its own resources and capacity, but there is room for external support," he noted.

"There are materials which need to get there in the next couple of days, such as food, medicine and medical supplies, mosquito nets, household kits and non-food items. Mosquito nets are urgently needed, given the amount of standing water and so many people living without shelter," he added.

"In the next few weeks, assuming things start to dry out, people are going to need corrugated iron sheeting to rebuild their homes. Eventually people will need agricultural tools and seeds, because a lot of farmland was destroyed by the floods," Olins said.

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