By Charles Mangwiro
MAPUTO, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Mozambique's national disaster agency, already struggling to get food and clean water to thousands of victims of flooding, warned on Monday the worst could be yet to come as the rainy season gets under way.
Paulo Zucula, the country's top disaster official, said there was only one helicopter working to bring relief supplies to people stranded in isolated evacuation centres, raising the spectre of malnutrition and disease.
"At least 4,000 people in the district of Mopeia have not received food and clean drinking water. They are starving and some diseases such as malaria and cholera are looming," he told Reuters by telephone from Caia, where the central relief office has been established.
Zucula said a number of evacuation centres were not accessible by road, leaving a single U.N. helicopter as the only way to get food and other supplies to the refugees.
"We were not prepared ... it's another disaster," he said.
More than 87,000 people have been affected by several weeks of flooding in Mozambique's Zambezi river valley, which in 2000 and 2001 suffered a major flood disaster that killed 700 people and displaced half a million more.
The reported death toll this year is only about 40, but officials are bracing for a possible surge in the numbers of displaced people as continued rains in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe drain into the already-flooded Zambezi.
Mozambique officials are attempting to control the situation by regulating water discharge from the country's massive Cahora Bassa Hydro-Electric dam, but this could become more difficult if flood waters continue to flow into the dam.
"We expect that scenario in two or three weeks ... our contingency plan is for 285,000 (displaced) people, but this number is likely to double," Zucula said.
Meanwhile, Mozambique's Red Cross has appealed for $5 million in food assistance to help feed more than 50,000 people scattered in 53 accommodation centres throughout the central provinces of Manica, Tete, Zambezia and Sofala.
"There is not enough food for everybody, some centres (in Zambezia) have not received food at all. We need help to reduce the effects of hunger, Red Cross Secretary-General Fernanda Texeira told the national television on Monday.
