Select Committee on International Development Minutes of Evidence



Examination of witnesses (Questions 260 - 279)

THURSDAY 23 MARCH 2000

ROSS MOUNTAIN, KATARINATOLL-VELASQUEZ and GILBERT GREENALL

Chairman

  260. It rained a hell of a lot in Zambia while we were there. It rained four days solid which will have an effect on rivers reaching Beira.
  (Gilbert Greenall) If I am correct the Zambia rains go down the Zambeze.

  261. That is probably right but the estuary is close to Beira, is it not?
  (Gilbert Greenall) North.

  262. North of Beira.
  (Ross Mountain) But, as I understand it, cyclone Eline went through in fact on Tuesday when you were battening down windows at your hotel. It went in south of Beira in the end. We are talking about a departure on the Friday, I guess it is. You left on the Thursday. But by then the cyclone had passed through Mozambique and you had been checking neighbouring countries?
  (Gilbert Greenall) Absolutely. We checked on the morning after the cyclone passed. We rang round every single agency in Maputo and Beira to have reports on damage and what the weather had actually done. We had a presentation at the daily brief on that collated information and it was not as bad as we had anticipated. We were surprised that most of the damage caused by the cyclone was actually at the mouth of the Save. You can see from the air today that it is a very localised effect in the first 20 miles of the Save River. It was rainfall in Zimbabwe that was the real problem and it was fours days later that this rain actually arrived in Limpopo.

Ann Clwyd

  263. Yet the weather forecast today on the BBC News says "We would expect towns in Mozambique to be swamped by flood waters after a dangerous rise in the level of the Limpopo."
  (Katarina Toll-Velasquez) There have been some alerts in the past few days that there might be a new wave coming down. As I understand from the field again this morning, this is a US military recce over the region concerned, that is the Limpopo river, the Elephantes River which joins the Limpopo, Cho«kwe" in particular and Xai-Xai. These are communities. According to the report this morning, so this record was yesterday, there was no trace of any water wave coming down. As a matter of fact, the waters in the Limpopo River have been receding over the past days. There is a standing alert that families should not move back to their homes because of course we do not know now what is going to happen. I think the Government is taking a very very cautious attitude right now with regard to sending back people. They are in alert mode still but we were not able to confirm these alarming reports.

Chairman

  264. So you do not trust them nonetheless?
  (Katarina Toll-Velasquez) Trust whom, sorry?

  265. The reports. You have been let down by them once.
  (Ross Mountain) We are very wary. We have people there now. When I say "we" I speak of the Government and the international community which has not only the helicopters there but now a lot of boats which were not there earlier on (including some supplied by the UK) and still a large number of people to help the Government manage any kind of crisis that may occur. We are, of course, doubly alert at this stage after the previous experience.

  266. It was the rain in Zimbabwe that caused the problems of the rise of the flood water and it took four days for that rain to arrive in the Maputo area down the Limpopo. Is that right?
  (Ross Mountain) Both Zimbabwe and South Africa in that area.

  267. Did Zimbabwe report this heavy rain to you?
  (Gilbert Greenall) We have got the report from the 24th.
  (Katarina Toll-Velasquez) There were reports of rains but there was really nothing that was different from the daily fluctuations in rainfall, the reports that we were given. I think the weather forecasting services have also improved now. If they suspect any kind of rise they will send out a warning with the kind of language that is very clear. That was not available to us at that time.

  268. Does Zimbabwe have adequate resources on the Limpopo and its head waters to alert Mozambique to heavy rain falls that might cause trouble?
  (Katarina Toll-Velasquez) That would be very difficult for me to respond to, I am sorry.

  269. You do not know. It seems to me there has got to be better regional co-operation if we are to forecast properly the sort of floods in the Limpopo Estuary and Save River.
  (Ross Mountain) Chairman, indeed, as I hope I made clear in my opening remarks, that we did not know and nobody, I am afraid, was predicting these floods. That came in out of the clear blue sky over Mozambique that weekend. Clearly that means we collectively as an international community and in support particularly of SADEC need to find structures and mechanisms to exchange information on this. I think there are nine rivers that rise in other countries that cross Mozambique so this is obviously a priority. The Government is aware of it. Indeed, I believe when Katarina and Gilbert were leaving that first time the last discussion they had with the Foreign Minister was about the importance of building up their capacity to deal with the normal run of floods. I repeat this was not normal run of floods.

  270. But it happens every year.
  (Ross Mountain) They do have floods and they have droughts, as we know, but 1.5 metres coming down the river, I am sorry, it was absolutely unexpected. Let's find out how we can expect this kind of thing through regional corporation, different monitoring. I am afraid when I say "we" it is the international community supporting the governments in those countries and SADEC in particular has shown quite a lot of interest in moving ahead on that outcome of the Maputo Summit. We as UN organisations will provide support in both disaster management training in terms of flood watershed management and mitigation policies, if we can be helpful.

  271. Was there in the OCHA team anybody trained to interpret raw meteorological data so as to understand possible natural disasters?
  (Ross Mountain) It so happened we had on that team the Deputy Director of the Zambia Met Office with all available data and Mozambique colleagues in the region.
  (Gilbert Greenall) He devoted his entire time to that mission with both the Mozambique Met Office and the Mozambique hydrology organisation, liaising with neighbouring countries for data on both those subjects.

  272. If it takes four days from the time the rain falls in Zimbabwe to the time it arrives in the Maputo area, why do you not have four days' notice of a rise in river levels?
  (Gilbert Greenall) I think, as I have mentioned before, the correlation between rainfall and the river regimes is very uncertain and I was enormously surprised at the speed at which the river goes up. Some of the graphs we have got illustrate that very well. There are sudden rises in less than 12 hours at times. It is very difficult to predict.

  Chairman: I think we should now move on to the escalation of the crisis from 25th February. We have got the OCHA team safely back to their homes on the 24th and 25th and so we need to look at the period from the 25th. Ms Oona King will lead on that.

Ms King

  273. Of course, hindsight is a very wonderful thing as obviously politicians know best of all! Seeing we are on helicopters I would like to stay on helicopters for a moment. I can understand why you left. It may not have been the most appropriate thing to do but I can understand it. Our own report we got was that the weather was fluctuating all the time throughout the time you were there. What I cannot understand is why it appears that there were a lot of donors casting all around the world looking for those helicopters and why there did not seem to be any available assessment of what equipment was where and so, for instance, we heard that DFID was on the phone to goodness knows where all around the world and presumably other donors were as well. Is that something that OCHA would or should consider doing?
  (Ross Mountain) In terms of availability of helicopters in the area we were aware of the availability of additional helicopters from South Africa. The mechanism of DFID was extremely useful to us for flowing—

  274. Was DFID the only donor doing it or were other donors doing it?
  (Ross Mountain) From South Africa? I have to have advice on that. In terms of helicopters I think it was essentially DFID that hired helicopters through the World Food Programme which is our UN mechanism generally for managing logistical support and they responded very quickly. Again I want to recognise funding came through very quickly from DFID for $1 million on that weekend and that was deployed through WFP very quickly bringing in a further five helicopters. That came on at that time. Not every government seeks to employ third country assets in responding to these crises for whatever reason that might be and, therefore, some prefer to use their own assets because it is a sign of solidarity with the country, some believe they should use their own assets as a matter of economics or whatever, but though we got up to nearly 60 aircraft at one point it was not suggested these all had to be found in the sub-region. Having said that, we are very keen to draw lessons from all of the circumstances that we have in this disaster and in other ones. One is that, indeed, we need to be clear on where there are such assets and how we can get at them as quickly as possible. As I say, I do not think there was any time lost here. The mechanism that DFID was able to mobilise with the World Food Programme made it happen, but clearly the availability of helicopter assets be it in Mozambique, be it in Northern Afghanistan, be it in the Caribbean is something that we need with our partners to try and see how we can mobilise them as quickly as possible.

  275. If people are talking about there being a clearing house for this type of thing, is that essentially what WFP is?
  (Ross Mountain) WFP certainly serves as a clearing house for aircraft of all kinds and other types of logistics.

  276. So were you aware of how many helicopters, which helicopters there were in Mozambique and for that matter in Zimbabwe, and were you dealing directly with them or are you saying you were going via the WFP?
  (Ross Mountain) Our role in co-ordination is to deal with the UN response. OCHA does not set itself up on a white horse doing everything itself. We work with the country team, we work with the other agencies, so it is part of the UN response. Indeed, we worked with them in definition and ensuring that these assets were brought on line. I hope that is clear. We do not believe OCHA should do everything in this.

  277. I understand that. I guess what I am trying to clarify is who is responsible, if anyone is responsible, for identifying where the assets are because it seems there is a somewhat confused situation, it is not necessarily anyone's fault, at the moment where there is no clear line of responsibility for who determines where the assets are.
  (Ross Mountain) We do in OCHA have another mechanism that serves us well in this context which is the Military and Civil Defence Assets where we have co-operation with governments through training particularly on how NATO governments interact with civilians in dealing with national disasters. As it happened in the case here, one such exercise was being organised with the United States Airforce. It was foreseen to be held in West Africa as an exercise. When this occurred we suggested that the US assets be switched to a real life situation in Mozambique. Indeed, that was part of the reason for the very significant United States response where they indeed were very anxious to come in and support. There is a necessity within the response unit of the UN dealing with the different arms to identify and fill these people as quickly as possible and as feasible as possible in conjunction with the government. We cannot bring in helicopters if the Government does not want us to bring in helicopters. I am sorry, there is a sovereign Government which deserves to be respected.

Chairman

  278. All we are trying to find out is what were the requirements, who was asking for them. If the Government of Mozambique was not asking for them, we need to know that. If they were asking for them, we need to know that. We then need to know do you know where to get helicopters quickly? We found in evidence much to our astonishment that DFID hired two helicopters in Mozambique during this period. I would have thought somebody somewhere ought to have knowledge of that and therefore be able to bring them in if required and somebody obviously did know about the Mozambique ones because that is what you did. You hired two in Mozambique, I do not know whether you hired any more and then you hired some more from South Africa.
  (Ross Mountain) If there were two in Mozambique they must have been South African helicopters.
  (Gilbert Greenall) 48 hours before we left there was an announcement they were coming from South Africa and would be for hire. I got the impression, which may be completely wrong, they had just been released from work on floods in South Africa.

Mr Robathan

  279. Were they civilian?
  (Gilbert Greenall) They were civilian aircraft.


 
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