AP, Blantyre :Flooding in Malawi has killed more than 176 people, displaced at least 200,000 others, left homes and schools submerged in water and roads washed away by the deluge in the southern African country, the vice president said on Friday.Downriver in neighbouring Mozambique, floodwaters have left at least 38 dead, according to Mozambican news agency AIM, displaced tens of thousands and damaged the main road linking the north and south of the country.While the Mozambican government’s flood plan, announced last year, may have lessened the damage, Malawi was caught off guard.Dozens of people are missing in Malawi, with at least 153 unaccounted for in the worst affected southern parts of the country, Vice President Saulos Chilima said.”It’s a very bad situation,” he said, speaking at a press conference in Malawi’s commercial capital Blantyre.A joint operation between the police and the army was underway to rescue hundreds who were trapped in their villages by flood waters caused by weeks of heavy rain, Chilima said. A bright spot of their work so far: Rescue workers had found a woman who had given birth while trapped by floodwaters. The mother and newborn were healthy, Chilima said.”I flew over some parts of the Lower Shire but we could not find anywhere to land,” he said of the south. “It’s a big challenge we have before us.” Thousands of homes had been destroyed, hundreds of hectares of crops submerged and livestock had been washed away, Chilima said.”We have lost everything,” said Kalenga, a man who took shelter in a tent camp set up by the Malawi Red Cross and Red Crescent Society, and Doctors Without Borders. He gave only his first name.Tents have been set up for those left homeless, and many have found refuge with friends and neighbours whose homes remained habitable, Doctors Without Borders said in a statement.
