According to South African National Defence Force (SANDF) Joint Operations spokesman, Captain Jaco Theunissen, the decision was taken following a reconnaissance mission over Zambezia on Thursday.
Quoted in the online publication Defence Web, Theunissen said that “an Agusta A109 from 17 Squadron will join the pair of 19 Squadron Oryx medium transport helicopters in the airborne command and control role”.
He added, “I can also confirm, following a planning meeting at Joint Operations after the return of the reconnaissance mission that six Navy rescue swimmers will go to Mozambique”.
The fourteen day operation will see the SANDF deploy a total of about 170 airmen, divers and medical staff.
Persistent torrential rains have led the Mozambican government to declare a “Red Alert” across the central and northern provinces. In particular, the Licungo River, which flows through the middle of Zambezia, has risen to levels never before seen in the history of independent Mozambique. At the town of Mocuba, it has destroyed part of a bridge on the main north-south highway (EN1).
The Licungo is now subsiding. Its estimated height at Mocuba on Thursday was 5.6 metres, compared with 12 metres on Sunday.
One piece of good news is that not all the occupants of a boat which capsized on Thursday have drowned, as was initially feared.
According to a report carried by the independent television station STV, the boat, owned by the relief agency, the National Disaster Management Institute (INGC), was carrying 12 people, not eight as earlier reported.
It was ferrying people in Mocuba, stranded after the collapse of the bridge, from one bank of the river to the other. It had made ten trips without mishap, when disaster struck, and a wave capsized the vessel.
The people aboard were swept downstream, and four of them were rescued by helicopter later in the day. One woman said she had clung onto a rock, and waved to the passing aircraft. She said that all those on board the boat were wearing life jackets, thus contradicting a claim published in Friday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”.
Post published in: Africa News