Mozambique, still recovering from crippling floods, cyclones and drought, will face severe food shortages that could affect up to 550,000 people by October, a top emergency coordinator said 9 August.

The deputy director of Mozambique's National Institute for Disaster Management (INGC), Joao Ribeiro, said food security is rapidly deteriorating in four provinces in central Mozambique where people lost crops and food during this year's disasters.

"We have received a report ... indicating that 550,000 will face severe food shortages by October as a result of a poor crop production and floods which swept through the Zambezi valley early this year," he told Reuters in an interview.

"This figure could well go beyond 600,000 by April 2008."

Ribeiro said the INGC had stepped up efforts to ensure that farmers can take full advantage of the predicted good rains this season.

"It is true that the real drought and hunger are there," he said.

Floods in central Mozambique killed 45 people and left 285,000 homeless in February and March, while cyclone Favio displaced another 140,000 people.

Of this number, 163,000 lost their houses and crops and are now living in accommodation and resettlement camps, and 122,000 lost crops in risk areas near the Zambezi River.

It was the worst flooding to hit the former Portuguese colony since 2000-2001 floods killed 700 people and drove half a million from their homes.

INGC has said it expects to resettle 140,000 victims of the floods by mid-April.

The U.N World Food Programme, which has been feeding flood victims since March, is undersupplied and maize prices are rising more rapidly than usual for this time of year, said Ribeiro.

Food shortages in drought areas could spill into the southern part of Mozambique if humanitarian groups do not intervene, he said. Mozambique is in its sixth consecutive year of poor harvests.

"Immediate mobilization of resources is crucial although we have some stocks from our contingency plan," said Ribeiro.

Malnutrition rates are rising in drought-hit regions as well as some parts of northern Mozambique which previously had sufficient food supplies.

Officials said in May that the southern African country may spend $131 million to import 280,000 tonnes of wheat and maize after drought and floods cut agricultural production by about 60 percent this year.

Despite the damage done by heavy flooding and cyclones, Mozambique is not expected to borrow extra funds to boost a budget under pressure to rebuild infrastructure, the finance minister has said.

Mozambique's 2007 budget currently stands at $2.8 billion, of which $1.4 billion is financed by donors helping the country rebuild after decades of a civil war that ended in the 1990s.