According to the latest bulletin from the National Water Board (DNA), on Thursday morning the river was measured at 4.9 metres at Marromeu, 15 centimetres above flood alert level.
Further upstream, at Caia, the river rose to 5.76 metres, well above the Caia flood alert level of five metres.
While the waters of the lower Zambezi may continue to rise for the next day or two, the DNA does not expect this to have any serious impact. The heavy rains of the past week or so in the Zambezi basin have stopped, and so major flooding seems most unlikely, at least for the immediate future.
As expected, in Zambezia province the Licungo river hit flood alert level at the town of Mocuba, reaching 6.18 metres on thursday morning, 18 centimetres above the local alert level. But further upstream, at Gurue, the river subsided sharply, falling from 4.1 metres at midday on Wednesday to 3.36 metres on Thursday. It now seems unlikely that there will be any serious flooding in the Licungo basin in the immediate future.
West of Beira, the Pungue river, measured at the Mafambisse sugar plantation, rose by just five centimetres, reaching 6.5 metres on Thursday morning. This has inundated the fields of those peasant farmers who planted right on the river's edge, but does not yet pose any threat to the Beira-Zimbabwe highway that runs parallel to the Pungue.
The flow of all the major rivers in the south of the country is stable, and none of them are currently in any danger of breaking their banks.
SOURCE: AIM
