The situation is under control only so far as we are now able to reach the affected people, Local Government Minister John Nkomo and chairman of the ministerial committee on civil disaster told IRIN on Monday. The larger issue now is of the possible outbreak of diseases like cholera and malaria. The much larger question is one of rehabilitating the people and the reconstruction of damaged infrastructure. Crops were destroyed and that means another full year of looking after these people. He denied criticism in the private media that the rescue effort had been slow to get off the ground and that the army had not provided enough helicopters.
Helicopters couldn t even fly because of the conditions.
He added that emergency teams, did their best given that it was the first time they were experiencing something of this scale. Nkomo, who has toured the affected areas, described seeing fields and homesteads submerged under floodwaters. We will do whatever we can. The people on their own will try and do what they can, but the destruction is so much. It s going to be a mammoth task.