{"id":43814,"date":"2017-04-04T10:14:17","date_gmt":"2017-04-04T08:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=43814"},"modified":"2017-04-04T10:14:18","modified_gmt":"2017-04-04T08:14:18","slug":"floods-displace-2300-households-in-karonga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2017\/04\/04\/floods-displace-2300-households-in-karonga\/","title":{"rendered":"Floods displace 2,300 households in Karonga"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>A <\/strong>continuous downpour since Friday in Karonga has resulted into floods which have so far displaced 2,313 households.<\/p>\n<p>A report by the Karonga district scouts\u2019 council says areas under traditional authorities Kilupula, Mwirang\u2019ombe and Wasambo are the worst affected.<\/p>\n<p>The report notes that 35 pregnant women have been rendered homeless after 124 houses collapsed with thousands others partially damaged.<\/p>\n<p>The value of the destroyed property is yet to be quantified as assessment work has not been completed in some of the affected areas.<\/p>\n<p>The chairperson of the scouts\u2019 council, Lusubilo Mwenelupembe, has, however, decried the situation, saying the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) has been overwhelmed by the extent of the damage caused by the raging waters.<\/p>\n<p>He added that lack of necessary resources is also delaying the assessment and verification processes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome hard-to-reach areas can\u2019t be accessed and there is need for special transportation to be arranged; need I mention that most members of the district and area protection committees are doing the assessment under harsh conditions?\u201d lamented Mwenelupembe.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, agriculture assessment and preliminary assessments at Lower Songwe and North Rukuru rivers are still underway.<\/p>\n<p>Confirming the development, Karonga Disaster Risk Management Officer Walusungu Mwafulirwa said Dodma is containing the situation despite the challenges.<\/p>\n<p>He said an evacuation centre has been opened at Chimalabanthu where tents are being mounted to accommodate the victims.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are supplying basic necessities such as pails, chlorine, mosquito nets and cooking utensils, while ensuring that we provide some of the households with cassava cuttings to ensure food security,\u201d said Mwafulirwa.<\/p>\n<p>Asked on how they are handling the pregnant women and lactating mothers, he said the Karonga District Health Office has been consulted for necessary expertise.<\/p>\n<p>Karonga continues to receive heavy downpours with estimated average forecasts of 100, 89 and 82 millimetres at Karonga Airport, Chilambiro and Kabale respectively among other areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A continuous downpour since Friday in Karonga has resulted into floods which have so far displaced 2,313 households. A report by the Karonga district scouts\u2019 council says areas under traditional authorities Kilupula, Mwirang\u2019ombe and Wasambo are the worst affected. The report notes that 35 pregnant women have been rendered homeless after 124 houses collapsed with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43816,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43814\/revisions\/43816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}