"The water came into the house the day after Christmas," said Luisa Macore, 70, a rice farmer who lives near Beira, Mozambique's second city and capital of the province of Sofala where 12 people have died.

"For more than a week we had to sleep on the table. Outside the water was thigh-deep," she said.

"We need help, food and mosquito nets," she said. Eight members of her family have died from malaria over the years, including her husband and three of her six children.

The region, through which rivers including the mighty Zambezi make their way to the sea, is subject to frequent flooding in the rainy season from December to March and malaria and cholera are endemic.

"These are marshy areas," Grio Custodio, the Red Cross representative in Sofala, said.

"There is always a problem when there are heavy rains. There was so much rainfall on December 25 and 26 alone that the drainage canals were blocked and the water flooded everything.

"Since the flooding cholera and malaria cases have increased."

Out of 954 people taken ill 15 have died. Normally the Cholera Treatment Centre in Beira deals with about 20 patients a month: in the past two months it has seen more than 100.

"Before the rains, it was quiet," said chief nurse Fernando Francisco. "But since they arrived we get at least 10 people a day suffering from diarrhoea and vomiting."

The floods have hit tens of thousands of families, and this weekend more than 3,500 were stll stranded in the districts of Nhamatanda, 95 kilometres (59 miles) north of Beira and Buzi, 140 kilometres to its west, according to an official count.

"The big worry is getting food to them," said Custodio. "There was a major drought in 2004 and 2005. With the floods these people have nothing to eat."

Eight tonnes of food are being sent in rubber boats, the only way of transporting it.

Much of the 60 kilometres of track linking Buzi to the main road to Beira, on the far side of an estuary, has been washed away.

The local people cannot afford boats so they have to wade through waist-deep water. During the floods the current swept three people to their deaths.

Normally, Carlito Josia, 23, spends four hours cycling to and from the market where he sells his charcoal.

"Since the rains it takes me seven hours," he said." I have to carry the sacks one by one on my head, and then the bike," he said gesturing at a huge gap in the track.

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