An old tractor rolls unsteadily through the rubble-strewn, flood-ravaged streets of Chokwe, pulling a trailer to collect corpses. There are many of them awaiting collection. Residents say as many as 500. It's a figure aid workers do not dispute.
54-year-old Dota Stoe, his feet caked with mud, leads me from the center of Chokwe to his shack in an outlying part of town. Here alone there are five bodies. They are rapped in white shrouds and are stretched out on the shack's tin roof -- a precaution Mr. Stoe says he has taken because he has seen dogs eating corpses left on the ground. The dead include his father. At 87, Mr. Stoe says he [the father] was too frail to flee the sudden surge of floodwaters that struck Chokwe in the night and rose two to three meters within a matter of minutes.
This young woman, 18-year-old Agida Afonso, shows me three more bodies lying at her devastated hut nearby. They, too, have been lying in the tropical heat for a week. Between the smell of the dead and the general odor of decay hanging over the town, it is not a pleasant experience.
“There's bodies in the bush, on the fields,
everywhere. The current just took them and the
current subsided. On the road here to Boubof,
there's a body there that I still have to get
to. That's basically the situation. It's
terrible.”
That’s Chris Horta. He is not having a good day, either. He is a Mozambican volunteer with the medical aid group "Doctors without Borders," and the man in charge of collecting Chokwe's dead. His frustrations are evident as he lashes out at the local authorities for doing little to help their own community -- even on a matter as simple as picking up and burying bodies.
"They're telling us stories that they don't have
a place, or they want a car, or want this. But
they have promised me that... I've given them
the sizes for the [burial] ditch, and they've
promised they're going to open a ditch for me
somewhere out there in an old cemetery. But
let's hope they keep their part of the bargain.
You know, I've had to organize a tractor, we had
to do everything else so we're waiting for their
part."
170-thousand people lived here before the floodwaters came. Several thousand have returned now that the water has begun to recede, to clean up their homes and
businesses and, in general, try to put their lives back in order. It is a difficult task. Few of the buildings here appear habitable. Most are filled with mud and debris that has to be swept away.
Many of the returnees only come by day, preferring to spend their nights in a nearby camp thrown up hastily for the displaced, where they can get emergency assistance. There is little food to eat in Chokwe itself, and most people are still drinking floodwater scooped from the river or from ponds left in low-lying parts of town.
Still, a small market has opened. Vendors are selling fish, maize, rice and other basic foods. Matches, batteries and a few other essentials are also available. It is not enough to feed many people, so relief agencies such as the United Nations World Food Program have begun shipping in food.
But authorities had to send police into Chokwe after an outbreak of looting and rioting apparently triggered by an attempt to distribute an insufficient amount of food aid. Calm has returned, but armed police are now patrolling the streets.
While in Chokwe, I also recorded my observations live-to-tape, a technique I used in Rwanda while covering the genocide:
I am reporting to you from the town of Chokwe. It is a town of destruction, devastation and death on the Limpopo River.
An elderly man and a young woman have just taken me to see some corpses. It is the elderly man's own father, who was in his 80s. He is wrapped in a plastic shroud, and he is lying on the roof of the man's shack. He has been there for a week, and the old man says no one has come to collect him yet. There are four other bodies with him. The younger lady took us and showed us the location where there are three bodies waiting for collection. They have not been picked up for over a week.
I spoke to an aid worker for the group "Doctors Without Borders," which is struggling to collect the bodies. He says they have picked up close to 40 so far, and he says he would not be surprised if there are 500 dead in Chokwe alone. That would make it the center of Mozambique's flood death toll.
It is truly a scene of utter devastation. I am speaking to you inside what used to be a furniture store. It is now a sea of mud. There is no furniture here. The windows are broken. It is tough to say whether that is from the flooding or from the looting, which residents tell us occurred after the floodwaters receded. By the way, the floodwater line in this furniture shop is clearly at least two meters high.
A sudden storm surge came through here late at night while most people were asleep, we are told. And it came in a matter of minutes. People were forced to flee as quickly as they could, to what little high ground they could find, or roofs, or second-story buildings. Many of them, obviously, did not survive.
The bodies have been found inside buildings, washed up against trees, stuck in bushes, wrapped around fences.
The water has receded considerably. You can now walk through the streets of Chokwe, but it is a mess. There are bits of debris and clothing stuck in treetops. There is trash throughout the streets, and mud everywhere. Some streets are still impassable. They have water in them. People are using that water now for drinking, for washing their clothes, for bathing.
Military authorities and relief workers in Mozambique became well-known for their heroics in the often dangerous job of rescuing people from rooftops and trees in flood-devastated areas. As the floodwaters receded, the emphasis shifted to moving people to emergency assistance centers and to delivering relief supplies. Although a multi-national fleet of aircraft was ultimately mobilized, it was a tiny squadron of South African helicopters that was in Mozambique since the beginning of the crisis that ended up doing most of the rescue and relief work. I went flying with them and filed this report:
It is shortly after dawn and Maputo airport is coming to life. The three-man crew of South African Air Force helicopter number 320 is intently involved with preflight checks. After three-weeks of virtually nonstop dawn-to-dusk flying, aircraft like their European-made BK-117 need careful attention before liftoff.
On this day, helicopter 320 is en route to Chibuto, the main relief center in the Limpopo River valley, about 160-kilometers north of the Mozambican capital. Shortly before leaving dry land to fly over the flood plain, there is a loud bang - and the pilot, Captain Chris Berlyn, reacts quickly, setting the helicopter own in a grassy field in just seconds. The maneuver - and the landing - are, to say the least, an exhilarating experience.
Asked what the problem is, Captain Berlyn tells me the engine temperature gauge suddenly shot into the red danger zone. After monitoring the instrument panel
carefully and listening just as carefully to the sound of the motor, he lifts the BK-117 off again and continues to Chibuto.
The crew is undisturbed by the incident. Once on the ground, pilot Berlyn concentrates on briefing a new crewmember on the use of the rescue harness he will be lowered in to pluck flood survivors clinging to life above the surging waters of the Limpopo in trees or on rooftops.
Moments later, the helicopter lifts off again and begins scouring the valley for anyone in danger. They pick up 18-people from treetops using the harness before shifting to transporting civilians from a village where their lives are not in immediate danger, but who have no food, medicine, or safe water.
It is tough, dangerous work. Civilian pilots like this man are envious of the South Africans' achievements.
"These guys have not stopped. I have been here
now, I came down at the beginning of February
when it first happened, and I went back to
Jo'burg, been down three times, these guys have
not stopped. Flat out, work, work, work, work."
The BK-117 is not a particularly large aircraft. It has a normal capacity of eight people. On this day, on its last mission, the helicopter heads off with five people on board - the pilot, a co-pilot, two crewmen and this reporter.
In a few minutes, we are hovering over a field of mud and water. A group of Mozambicans starts slogging to the helicopter from the building where they have been
sheltering. A woman with a baby and a suitcase climbs in, followed by an elderly man with a water-logged bag of clothing. Then more people pile in.
Soon it becomes so crowded it is no longer possible to distinguish whose arms and legs are attached to which bodies.
The BK-117 groans as it strains to lift off. Slowly, almost painfully, it gains altitude and struggles back to the airstrip at Chibuto. When it lands, it does so ungracefully, slamming into the ground, then sliding a hundred meters on its landing skids.
In all, there were 26 people on board --- 26 on an aircraft with a normal capacity of eight. I am astonished --- but even more so when I learn later the record for one of these helicopters during the Mozambique operation is 32.
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