Living with the Zambezi’s delta force

People living in the vast delta of the Zambezi, Africa's fourth-longest river, know the rich landscape can come at a cost.

When the water is high, it irrigates the fields, delivers nutrients and feeds villages with ample fish supplies.

But if the waters continue to rise, the delta becomes a vast killing field for anyone trapped on the low-lying lands.

Over the past decade, Mozambique has suffered from an unprecedented series of widespread floods.

In recent years, thousands of villagers in the delta have lost their homes, livestock and crops in back-to-back years of flooding.

"Normally, floods occur every 10 years; at least that is what happened for the past 100 years," Higindo Rodrigues, director of a Mozambique government resettlement programme, told the Television Trust for the Environment's (TVE) Earth Report programme.

"But from December and January of 2006, 2007 and 2008, we have floods occurring in the same place in the Zambezi valley - and that's abnormal."

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