Cyclone Idai
Debate between Countess of Mar and Lord Elton
Lord Elton
My Lords, my interest was first sparked by the fact that the cyclone struck three countries: Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. There was no mention of Zimbabwe, either in the report in the Daily Telegraph or on the BBC’s website. Zimbabwe is not a member of the Commonwealth, but it remains part of the human race and the suffering there is appalling.
I will read a little bit of an email I received this morning from a friend of mine in Chimanimani in Zimbabwe:
“800 mm of rain in one day caused a huge mudslide … at 7.30 at night … swept away our sawmill, workshops, tree nursery with most of this year’s avo and mac trees for planting and all of next years and most terrible of all 37 out of 39 x 8 room workers rooms killing 5 with another 15 odd missing presumed dead and masses injured”.
One washed up six kilometres away. It went on:
“Fields that were full of nut-laden … trees now look like dry river beds just rocks not a spoonful of earth”.
The Countess of Mar (CB)
My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but this is a Private Notice Question and should be treated as a Question, not as a Statement.
Lord Elton
I am sorry. I thought my question was self-evident from the start. What is being done to ensure that this aid is distributed throughout the three countries and not pinned down to two of them through favouritism?