Now the country is facing its biggest challenge-trying to rebuild crucial infrastructure like roads, schools and irrigation and drainage canals. Madagascar is particularly vulnerable to devastating cyclones and this vulnerability accounts for much of the poverty in the country. Response in Mozambique Heavy rains in January caused massive increases in the water levels in both the Kariba and Cabora Bassa lakes. Floodgates on the lakes had to be opened in March and forced large amounts of water into the Zambezi Valley provinces. Communication lines in Mozambique are virtually non-existent and this has been a serious impediment to emergency relief.
Some remote areas are only accessible by helicopter and many others are completely unreachable.
Many of the people didn't expect the rains to last so long and have been forced to move far away from their homes to escape the floods. Very little of their previous life remains intact. The floods that hit Malawi in 2001 flooded 13 of their 26 districts making them far more destructive than the floods of 2000. Approximately 340,000 people were affected and, in February, the President of Malawi declared that the country was in a state of disaster. As in the other countries in the region, Malawi suffered severe infrastructure damage.