A Hard Rain Falls

Another century, another disaster, and Africa is bombarded again. Having put up with a half century of warfare, hunger and disease, this time it was the weather. The fourth horseman cometh. His stormtrooper was Cyclone Eline, which devastated Mozambique and Zimbabwe with high winds and heavy rains. It blew in on top of local flooding caused by heavy rains earlier in February. This wasn't just a storm in a teacup, it was the real Ally Daly.

And it just got worse from there. Biblical torrents descended from the mountains, a high-water surge, a tidal wave, washing down the Limpopo and Save rivers. Not since Noah has humanity seen the like. Well, apart from Bangla Desh. Unfortunates were caught in their homes as the waters rose about them. The lucky ones found shelter in the tops of trees, or were aroused in time to flee. But thousands perished. Villages too. A million or more are homeless. In Zimbabwe, the oil supply lines were cut. And disease is rampant. And Cyclone Gloria is building off Madagascar.

One report described how life had 'completely stopped', because everywhere, including the banks, shops and offices were 'inundated'.

The scale of the disaster will only become apparent as the waters recede. Farm houses will have been destroyed. But such is their construction, they can be rebuilt. Not so the people, the backbone of any rural world. Whole family and tribal networks will have been battered, and many shattered. The physical infrastructure will also be in ruins, and roads and rail in particular. More worrying, thousands of landmines, residues of the years of war, will have been washed away from their known zones to who knows where, ready to wreak devastation on the unwary.

In addition, neighbouring countries have opened their dams because of the huge amounts of water they were holding, and fears that the dams might collapse. The downstream effects are unknown, but should be manifesting themselves as you read this column.

As for the land, it is likely that huge amounts of silt will have been deposited. It may be beneficial in places, but when the Mississippi flooded some years ago, the deposit set as a kind of crust. It wasn't helpful at all. The horror is that these countries are immensely fertile. They should be the breadbasket of Africa, even the world. But centuries of colonialism, followed by decades of conflict and disease, of which AIDS is merely the latest and most devastating, have conspired to ruin them. They are indebted up to and beyond their hocks.

Are there bright spots? Not many. One is the help given to Mozambique by the South Africans. Many of the chopper pilots who flew endless missions of mercy were veterans of the South African troubles, and may even have been involved in covert operations in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Angola. But, it is reported, their skills and dedication saved many.

What is the cause of the floods? Global warming? Perhaps. This year, La Nina, the counterpoint to the more famous El Nino, has meant record rains in many countries. It is widely felt that these two strange weather phenomena are becoming more frequent and more severe, largely because of the turbulence caused by global climate change.

We may have to get used to this ourselves. Indeed, if either of the two pessimistic medium-term prognoses come true, we islanders may also be on the move in due course. A new Ice Age, or the melting of the polar ice caps would render most of Ireland uninhabitable. If we are to be refugees in the future, it might behove us to be more sympathetic to those who are refugees today.

Finally, two things particularly struck me about the flood disaster in east Africa. The first was the parallel reports from Australia. La Nina is at work there also, and there is widespread flooding in Queensland, New South Wales and the Northern Territory. There are cyclones as well. A police chief flew over the land and described it as 'a big ocean, a big brown ocean'. The floodwaters have broken the banks of the major river systems and flooded the desert plains.

But there, the authorities are pointing to the positive outcomes. The waters may not recede for some weeks, or even months, but when they do, much of inland Australia will be carpeted with wild flowers and many desert shrubs and trees will begin to grow. Seeds that have lain waiting for rain, in some cases for many years, will sprout. Birds that follow the rains have arrived in the desert and, according to the South Australian Environment Minister Iain Evans, there are frogs everywhere.

What's the difference? Why are floods more disastrous in one place than in another? There is only one answer and it is to do with poverty. All the infrastructural problems, the inability to respond early, the difficulty of moving aid, the lack of appropriate medicines, can all be ascribed to poverty. The political system in the east African countries is also at fault - too much autocracy, corruption and inefficiency. But above all, it's poverty and debt. And that is something the western countries must act upon. After all, our first ancestors walked the same earth and forded the same rivers. We are one and the same.

The second thing that strikes is that on one hand places get too much water, and often at the wrong times, while others do not get enough. And sometimes it is the same place, at different times. Floods and droughts operate in cycles. It should be possible to work with people in highland areas to build small dams to hold and slowly release waters, like a kind of artificial glacier. Aid agencies please note.

From there it seems like an obscenity to mention the research in the UK into the amount of Guinness lost in moustaches. But there you are. It's been done and the answer is that 162,719 pints are caught in moustaches every year, worth half a million IR#. Guinness estimates that there are 92,370 drinkers with facial hair in the UK, and that they consume on average 180 pints a year. Seems low to me on both counts, but what would I know?