Entire town evacuated.

30 inches of rain.

Some of the most sensitive areas in the world are facing drought and faminine.

August 1, 2016

Low water levels (click here) on Mozambique’s Lago de Cahora Bassa betrayed signs of stress in late July 2016.... 

...Roughly 18 million people there urgently need food assistance, leading the United Nations World Food Programme to declare the region its highest-level emergency. Plunging water levels also threaten the area’s key power source: its hydroelectric dams.

Images from the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 satellite show water levels dropping in the Lago de Cahora Bassa between July 2014 and August 2016. The lake is part of the Zambezi River Basin, which also supplies water to Zimbabwe and Zambia. Water levels on Lago de Cahora Bassa have dropped more than than five meters below capacity.

The light-colored “bathtub ring” around the reservoir’s shores and islands in 2016 indicates exposed sediments that were underwater in 2014 before the water receded. Pronounced changes in water depth also show up in the lake’s color, with deep, emerald shades turning milkier as the reservoir empties. Some features have emerged from the lake as water levels has receded; in the second image, a former island has filled out into a peninsula.

There is no bathtub ring visible around Lake Kariba (to the west) because the lake is much narrower and deeper. But that reservoir now stands just 31 percent full. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aquasatellite captured a wide view (below) of Kariba and Cahora Bassa on August 1, 2016. Both reservoirs are home tomassive hydropower dams that supply the region with electricity....

Mozambique police have come under scrutiny (click here) in the past two days for killing six civilians. The media is under attack as well.

August 13, 2016

Mozambique’s National Union of Journalists (SNJ) (click here) has condemned an attack on a group of journalists who were ambushed by gunmen from the opposition party Renamo on Friday.

The victims of the ambush were a team of reporters travelling to Macossa, in the central province of Manica, to cover President Filipe Nyusi’s visit to the district. Two cars belonging to Radio Mozambique and public television broadcaster TVM were fired upon as they drove through Chiuala, in Barue district, resulting in a journalist receiving a minor injury from shards of glass.

The union’s General Secretary, Eduardo Constantino, condemned the attack as a war crime on the grounds that it broke the third Geneva Convention on press freedom....

Africa's rebel groups are famous for surviving and hostilities for natural resources. Water is quickly taking on the characteristic as being a natural resource to covet.

August 14, 2016

Fighters of former Mozambican rebel movement Renamo receiving military training. (JINTY JACKSON, AFP)

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi (click here) on Sunday expressed his solidarity with the journalists who were attacked by gunmen from the opposition party Renamo on Friday.

The victims of the ambush were a team of journalist travelling to Macossa, in the central province of Manica, to cover the President's visit to the district. Two cars belonging to Radio Mozambique and TVM were fired upon as they drove through Chiuala, in Barue district, resulting in a journalist receiving a minor injury from shards of glass.

Speaking to reporters, President Nyusi said that this type of incident, which has also targeted women and children, must end....

August 16, 2016

Maputo - Six people have been killed in an attack (click here) by Renamo rebels in Mozambique, police said on Monday, the latest in a string of violent skirmishes between opposition fighters and government forces.

Two unidentified survivors claimed that government troops had staged the attack, but police laid the blame squarely on rebels.

"Armed men from Renamo ambushed a vehicle on Friday, firing at it until it caught fire," police spokesperson Daniel Macuacua told AFP.

"Six people were burnt to death." All the victims were civilians, though their identities have not been released.

"We are still looking for any potential survivors who may have escaped," Macuacua added.

'Lined up and shot'

But two survivors told the country's independent television channel STV on condition of anonymity, that the government troops were behind the attack....