TRAIN AVAILABLE TO TAKE CARS ACROSS FLOODED ROAD

A train is now available to carry vehicles across the flooded stretch of the Beira-Zimbabwe highway in the central Mozambican province of Sofala, reports Monday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”. The Pungue river has swept across the road along the stretch between Mutua and Tica, about 80 kilometres west of Beira, making the road extremely hazardous for light vehicles.At the request of the Sofala provincial government, the port and rail company CFM has made a train formed of 15 wagons available which can ferry vehicles between the Tica and Dondo rail stations. The railway is higher than the road and is in no immediate danger of being flooded.CFM could not start this service as soon as it had hoped because a goods train carrying a consignment of wheat to Zimbabwe derailed on Friday night, and the line could only be reopened at 16.00 on Saturday. CFM then discovered that, because no proper publicity had been given to the train service, there were no vehicles waiting to be transported either at Tica or at Dondo. So the Saturday train service was cancelled.CFM planned to run two trains a day in each direction along the 40 kilometre stretch of line, but this all depended on how much demand there was for motorists.Despite being told not to use the road, some light vehicles continued to take the risk. Some simply turned their engines off and paid local people up to 1,000 meticais (about 33 meticais) to push them across the flooded stretch of road.On Saturday the water on the road was 70 centimetres deep, though this fell to 40 centimetres on Sunday. Hundreds of trucks and other vehicles queued up on either side to cross the flooded stretch in convoy under police escort.