Mozambique, known as the world's poorest country, is now fighting a huge catastrophe.
Kofi Annan holding the world's 6 billionth person... so they say. This was on 12 October 1999. Since then, some 100 million more were born...
Europe is DYING. Europe is the only Continent, where the number of deaths [right bar] equals the numbers of births [left bar].
Because births are decreasing, it is expected Europe to have more deaths than births, in 2050.
Mozambique has frontiers with Zimbabwe, South Africa, Swaziland, Malawi and Tanzania. These are some of the world's greatest countries, in what comes to animal life diversity. Africa doesn't get much more African than @ these wonderful places, where Mother Nature rules more than anywhere else.
Mozambique suffered 12 years of civil war, but Maputo - the capital - escaped without much destruction. Contrary to Maputo, Beira - the 2nd largest city - was badly damaged.
After the war [late 1998], the country started to recover, only to be devastated, in March 2000, due to two cyclones and massive floods. This is something never seen there, and it is just another proof of how much we are hurting the planet, with millions of millions of cars, unrestricted industrial activity, and blind usage of natural resources. We are going to kill ourselves.
The longest running human civilization are the ancient Egyptians [from ~3100 BC] which lasted for no more than 3 thousand years. Modern civilization is less than 1 century old, it is showing obvious severe problems, with too much regional conflicts and - more relevant - a rhythm of destruction that has already assured the sink of the Netherlands, by 2100, the burning of all the Amazon jungle before that, and the extinction of nearly 40% of current forms of life, from bacteria to insects, to high level predators, in the next 20 years. God! What are WE doing?! I really can't understand how everyone is living with this short term attitude!
Unexpectedly, Mozambique was the 1st country to pay a terribly HIGH price for recent mistakes. Meteorological data did NOT anticipate the cyclones. Waters raised higher than models could preview. Nature is behaving NOT according to patterns.
Many countries are helping Mozambique. Until now, the most impressive helps have come from Portugal, the USA and Italy.
Portugal "forgot" nearly 150 million US dollars [!!] of Mozambique's debt to the country! This is an huge amount in absolute terms, but even more impressive, considering that Portugal is a [geo] small european nation, far less rich than England, France and Germany, for example.
Italy "forgot" ALL Mozambique's debt, but the value was much smaller. U2's Bono Vox is pressuring other countries to do the same.
The USA are deploying thousands of troops and hardware to save people and help reconstruct Mozambique!
England and France are also strongly supporting the unfortunate africans.
2 million people have lost everything. Absolutely everything. Numbers are smashing. ALL crops are lost. This is a true catastrophe.
We are still growing. Last count refers 6.1 billion of humans @ Earth.
This is a big number... We grew 1 billion in 12 years [since 1988].
We are now growing @ a pace of 1 billion / 10 years.
Keeping this pace we will be 16 billion before the end of the XXI century.
Isn't this too much? Of course problems [will] arise...
Beautiful Maputo, months ago.
Mozambique as seen today. People are living very much like Kevin Costner did in Waterworld.
Agriculture is ruined. Mozambique can't even feed its people. The country is totally on the hands of the International Community.