A South African air force rescue team rescued a Mozambican baby yesterday just an hour after she was born in a tree where her mother was perched over floodwaters.
Sophia Pedro (22) and her baby daughter, Rositha, were among the few lucky ones. Many thousands of Mozambicans are waiting to be lifted to safety from branches and rooftops, marooned for days by rising water which has swallowed towns and villages.
The mother was clinging with about a dozen women, men and children to a tree in Mondiane village, on the outskirts of Chibuto town.
A multi-national rescue operation led by South Africa is under way in the impoverished southern African country, faced with a flood disaster on a massive scale.
The conical grass-thatch roofs of huts poking up from muddy waters were all that could be seen of what used to be fields and villages between Maputo and Chiputo, about 150 km north of the capital, during a one-hour helicopter flight.
Atop some of the roofs were not only people desperately waving to any aircraft that flew past, but also small animals such as dogs and goats. Farm animals were still struggling against the waters with only the top halves of their heads and horns showing.
President Joaquim Chissano said the number of people made homeless by the waters from the rising Limpopo, Save and Incomati rivers had reached the million mark. He appealed for further foreign assistance.
The generally estimated number of dead still stood at 200 but experts say the actual toll would only be known after the waters have subsided.
Helicopters continued to pluck survivors from roofs and trees in the south, where the Limpopo river has spread in places to a width of 125 km. In Maputo, a correspondent met a woman who had paid $4,500 to a private charter company to rescue her, her six-year-old son and a friend, leaving neighbours trapped in trees from which some had dropped to their deaths.
With at least a dozen aircraft flying over southern Mozambique, aviation experts said the country's airspace has never been so busy. But the aircraft are just a third of what is needed, according to the country's Foreign Minister, Mr Leonardo Simao.
A US cargo plane yesterday morning delivered plastic sheeting for shelter for up to 10,000 families, as well as blankets and 13 tonnes of high-energy biscuit.
In addition, Washington's relief agency, USAID, is to provide $1 million to help to fund search-and-rescue operations.
The French medical relief agency, Medecins du Monde, announced yesterday that it had sent a five-member team and 10 tonnes of medical and sanitary equipment to Mozambique. The team joined a doctor and a logistics expert whom the agency sent 10 days ago to the central Mozambique province of Sofala to evaluate the damage.
UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, has launched a £2 million fund-raising appeal to provide emergency and long-term relief to Mozambique. An estimated 70,000 of the million homeless are children under five years of age.
In Dublin, Concern yesterday announced it had received more than £30,000 in public donations in the last four days for its relief operation in Mozambique.
The international community's reluctance to come to the assistance of the Mozambique population was severely criticised by GOAL. Calling for the Government to exert pressure on the UN, Mr John O'Shea, GOAL's director, said: "The response of the international community to the suffering being endured by the people of Mozambique has been pathetic. Five helicopters have been provided when 500 are probably needed." He added: "If such a disaster occurred in the West, the response would be entirely different."
Donations can be sent to UNICEF Ireland at 28 Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin 1. Tel: (01) 878 3000. Alternatively, lodgements can be made to the agency's emergency fund at AIB, 5 College Street, Dublin 2, account number 24070037, sort code 93-33-84.
Those wishing to make a donation to the Concern Mozambique Appeal can do so by calling 180 410 510.