Mozambique thrown back on foreign aid despite careful preparation and fast action. The lakes of floodwater that consumed whole towns are trickling back into Mozambique's rivers, but the TV cameras have gone, and with them the international attention that set off the scramble to rescue a drowning people.
Compassion is expensive, too.
Disaster prevention, on the other hand, is relatively cheap. Natural disasters used to be called acts of God because human beings admitted no responsibility for such events. For three weeks the country laboured under the worst floods in living memory. No one outside took much notice. My house I can rebuild.