The government hopes to build 54 weather stations by 2024 as part of the "One District, One Weather Station" program, the Minister of Transport and Communications said yesterday.

"By 2024 we plan to cover about 54 districts [with weather stations] and then another 54," with a total of 108 stations expected to be installed under the program, Janfar Abdulai said.

The governor was speaking this Friday on the sidelines of a meeting to assess the impacts of the 2021/2022 rainy season, held by the National Institute for Disaster Risk Reduction and Management.

The "One District, One Weather Station" program was created to address the natural calamities affecting the national territory, considered one of the countries most severely affected by climate change in the world, facing cyclical floods and tropical cyclones.

At least 142 people were killed, 368 were injured, and more than a million were affected by natural disasters during the rainy season, which ran from October to April.

"Unfortunately, the biggest cause of deaths this season has been collapsing walls, a situation that has occurred more in the provinces of Nampula and Zambezia," said Ana Cristina Manuel, director of Mozambique's National Emergency Operating Center (CENOE).

According to the official, the houses are mostly built with precarious material, which makes the "walls can't resist" the rain.

The rainy season in Mozambique also caused "major impacts" in the energy, education, roads, and fishing sectors, said the CENOE director, without giving any figures.

The 2018/2019 rainy season was one of the most severe in recent memory in the country: 714 people died, including 648 victims of two of the largest cyclones (Idai and Kenneth) ever to hit the country.