More than 1,500 families live in risk areas and areas prone to flooding in Matola municipality, Maputo province.

According to the report of Radio Mozambique, these are families that built their houses in eleven neighborhoods of the capital of Maputo province, some of them in rainwater retention basins.

Most of these families have their houses submerged at the moment, a situation that is aggravated by the rain that has been falling recently.

The more than 1,500 families living in flood-prone risk areas, at least 500 have erected their dwellings illegally along the waterfront in the Matola A neighborhood.

Questioned by Radio Mozambique, some of the owners of the houses described that they go through difficult situations whenever there is a high tide.

Last week, Municipal Infrastructure Councillor and Matola City Council spokesman Firmino Guambe, in an interview with AIM, said that that municipality is working to mobilize about $70 million to solve the problem of cyclical flooding, causing incalculable human and material damage.

"To definitively solve the problem of environmental sanitation, at the level of the Municipality of Matola, we made a study that indicates that we need about 70 million dollars. This amount will be used for the construction of drainage ditches, basin recovery, and restoration of the normal course of the waters," said Firmino Guambe, explaining that the amounts involved are far beyond the financial capacity of the municipality.