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Blantyre - Up to 2 000 people have been displaced in Malawi's southern district of Chikwawa where 500 homes have been destroyed due to flash floods following heavy rains, an official said Monday.Chikwawa district commissioner Lawford Palani said that "continuous heavy rains" in the past week induced flash floods which destroyed 500 homes in 20 villages.Most people in the impoverished district live in hovels, thatched with grass and walls built with mud.Palani said the floods have also flattened vast hectares (acres) of fields, which were due to be planted with food crops including the staple maize.No one was injured or killed during the floods, Palani added.He said the government swiftly moved into action after the floods hit the district, bringing emergency food and plastics for makeshift tents for shelter.The victims were being housed in two make-shift tents while others have sought refuge in churches and schools.The country's Meteorological Department has warned "heavy rains may induce heavy flooding in flood-prone areas like the Lower Shire Valley".Thousands of people prefer to live along the Shire, the country's longest river which flows into Mozambique and is the only outlet of the giant Lake Malawi, wanting to plant seeds in fertile soils left by flooding.The lower Shire districts of Chikwawa and Nsanje are annually prone to flooding.As in the days of Noah...
