♪♪ -Our warming planet is triggering more extreme weather with cataclysmic consequences.

♪♪ A worldwide rise in natural disasters.

♪♪ -Today we are seeing many more people incredibly vulnerable.

Each disaster that puts people in such dire straits is getting worse.

It's getting more complex.

It's getting wider spread.

Countries are overwhelmed.

-When disaster strikes, anywhere in the world, a tried and tested operation swings into action.

-You have emergency telecommunications.

Here you have the air ops.

-Bringing order to chaos, hope from despair.

This series follows the mechanics of disaster relief, from the inside.

-In any emergency, there are four critical clusters -- health, food, W.A.S.H., and shelter.

-Specialist relief workers team up with local people on the ground.

-[ Speaking native language ] I'm working, but my heart is very sick, because I don't like to see my people this time.

-Can survivors recover before disaster strikes again?

-It will be years before we get this done.

But we're all here together working hand in hand.

-And how will the world cope with more frequent and ferocious disasters?

-We learn lessons, and we build on it.

It's a global phenomenon.

No one is immune from this.

-In 2019, Mozambique was hit by a cyclone with unexpected, devastating consequences.

-I'm scared, and people's crying.

People dying.

-There was a rapid scramble to deal with the emergency.

-I don't like seeing air assets on the ground.

That's not good enough.

-And a determination to ensure that, when it happens again, they'll be better prepared.

-This is the new normal.

♪♪ [ Woman singing in native language ] ♪♪ -All countries are equal, but when it comes to disasters, some countries are more equal than others.

♪♪ Mozambique is one such place.

♪♪ It sits on the southeast coast of Africa, a country with a long coastline and abundant natural resources.

♪♪ But when the nation emerged from its colonial past, 15 years of civil war took its toll on the economy.

♪♪ Now they face a new challenge -- climate change.

It brings a sharp increase in drought, floods, and cyclones.

♪♪ To help the people and their government deal with these crises, aid organizations have teams on the ground.

♪♪ -I'm the national coordinator for a consortium of three international NGOs.

Countries like Mozambique are bearing the brunt of the more frequent and more intense climate-driven disasters.

♪♪ -I am the emergency coordinator for the World Food Programme Mozambique.

We have been in Mozambique for many, many years, working with INGC, the Mozambican disaster management authority.

♪♪ In Mozambique, there's the cyclone season, which runs from January to March.

♪♪ -Every year, powerful storms form over the Indian Ocean.

They crash into Mozambique's coast, gradually losing strength as they move inland.

♪♪ But in 2019, there was a chain of events that took everyone by surprise.

♪♪ -Nobody had any idea of the magnitude of what we were gonna be faced with.

♪♪ -A powerful weather system had grown into a category four storm that was named Cyclone Idai.

It smashed into Beira, home to half a million people.

♪♪ Winds over 100 miles an hour tore through the city, wreaking havoc through the night.

♪♪ As the storm moved inland, the emergency coordinators were sheltering to the north.

-Emma and I were in Caia so that we wouldn't get the brunt of the cyclone, so that we'd be able to respond.

-We prepared to leave in convoy with INGC, the national disaster management authority, and we chased the storm down, pulling over, waiting for the winds to settle so that we could move forward.

-It took us about nine hours to drive to Beira.

We could see the fallen trees and the destruction.

♪♪ The coastal area was flooded.

♪♪ But as we went around, it seemed like we were tackling mostly material damage.

It didn't seem that this was gonna be a life-saving emergency.

♪♪ -But over the next 48 hours, they'd soon change their minds.

♪♪ -Out of Beira city, we found that the road was completely cut and crumbling.

There was major flooding.

-The water was flowing under the road.

We were standing in very unstable ground.

-I could hear thousands of voices screaming for help in the trees.

[ People yelling ] But it was 5:00, starting to get dark.

[ Speaking foreign language ] ♪♪ The South African search and rescue teams, the volunteer teams, had also made it in.

Unfortunately, due to the conditions of the road, they'd had to abandon their motorized boat, so all they had were small, inflatable rowing boats.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -They started rescuing people from trees.

-Wait there!

-Wait.

Wait.

-I'm here!

-[ Shouts indistinctly ] -Just wait there.

We're coming, right?

-It was terrible, because, at that point, they had to decide who to rescue.

-Hey!!

-There are three kids, huh?

-Four kids.

-You want the children first?

-First, yeah.

[ Indistinct conversations ] One.

One at a time.

One at a time.

[ Indistinct conversations ] One more, a baby.

Yeah, got it?

Good, Mommy.

First?

-Then we come back.

-Okay.

Okay.

-Get the kids out.

-We'll come back for you.

[ Thunder crashes ] -The currents were unbelievable.

These guys were super-human in their strength.

-Let's just go right.

The boat's taking us left.

-But there's only so many people you can pluck out and put on boats.

So they were bringing in the most vulnerable people who weren't able to hang on.

[ Child crying ] They were freezing cold and sopping wet, and they'd been there for probably 12 to 14 hours.

♪♪ -They saved this one baby, and the baby immediately held onto Emma, so much that she couldn't bear passing the baby on to somebody else.

♪♪ -But we didn't save the mother that night.

[ Sniffles ] And I haven't actually talked about any of this yet, so forgive me.

♪♪ -Over the next few days, the relief teams faced huge logistical challenges.

♪♪ Cyclone Idai had crippled the power network... ♪♪ ...wiped out telecommunications, and the persistent cloud cover severely limited access to satellite images.

♪♪ It was four days before the weather was good enough to get a plane in the air to assess the scale of the disaster.

♪♪ -We flew along the main road, more or less the place where the road had been washed away, and then we realized that this was just the first washed-away road of about 20 kilometers of washed-away road.

♪♪ -We discovered oceans, inland oceans.

There was not a tree.

There was nothing sticking up.

We now know that some of those areas were up to 11 meters deep.

The water went to the horizon in every direction.

♪♪ -That meant that people climbed to their rooftops when the water was rising, and then, when that was submerged, they climbed to the treetops, and that was submerged, too.

There was no one left to save.

Even Katrina didn't have this level of flooding.

♪♪ -A vast expanse of water, 15 miles wide and 80 miles long, submerged entire villages.

Hundreds lost their lives.

The flood turned Beira into an island, severing all road access to the city.

The team had to summon up all its experience to help the government scale up the response.

-Once I had composed myself, I went straight to the minister and told him the enormity of what we were dealing with -- a one in 200-year event.

-Moçambicanas e Moçambicanos... -Mozambique's president now says more than 1,000 people may have died as Cyclone Idai plowed through the country.

-We are talking about a massive disaster right now, where hundreds of thousands, in the millions of people potentially affected.

-The storm is possibly the worst weather-related disaster ever to hit the Southern Hemisphere.

♪♪ -Mozambique was a massive disaster.

♪♪ Obviously government were not going to be able to cope with it and needed assistance.

The minute they cannot cope anymore, then you're asked to come in.

You can see that they are overwhelmed.

♪♪ Any life lost -- man, woman, child -- is one life too many.

♪♪ -Over the next few days, governments and NGOs quickly deployed aircraft to deliver emergency supplies and find survivors.

♪♪ -We diverted the helicopter that was saving people on the trees... ♪♪ ...to the people that were drowning.

We left the people in the trees because they were in the trees.

They were safe.

All those decisions are very -- really difficult to make.

We are going to have to live with them for the rest of our lives.

♪♪ -The window for saving flood victims from drowning was shrinking fast.

♪♪ The rescue teams had to refocus their efforts on supporting survivors.

-Little by little, we felt the response, day by day.

The government of Mozambique triggered a request for more assistance, and now we need to get the full humanitarian package delivered.

We need to do that yesterday.

♪♪ -Within days, more than 100 different organizations from all over the world respond, flying in supplies and personnel.

♪♪ Beira Airport is inundated.

♪♪ The UN sends in a specially trained coordinator for major disasters like this.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -That's correct.

-Yeah, okay.

[ Whistles ] This is the morning briefing!

No other discussions in that room, please!

[ Indistinct conversations ] -Alright, good morning!

For those newly arrived, my name's Sebastian.

I'm the deputy humanitarian coordinator coordinating the field operations in response to the unfolding emergency.

-Sebastian and his team, these guys are the experts.

These are the guys that surge in to respond to Haiti earthquake, to tsunami, to the very, very, very large-scale events.

They are the only real standing expertise for dealing with something of this magnitude.

-I would like to make a couple of points this morning, just so you know what's going on.

This is a government-led operation.

We're here to support them.

It's their operation.

We back them up.

Couple of points on the clusters.

In any emergency, there are four critical clusters -- health, food, W.A.S.H., and shelter.

In response to a disaster, you find a number of teams coming in.

In the first couple of days, it's a trickle, and then it turns into a flood, and then it turns into a positive sort of tsunami of aid workers.

What we bring to the chaos is organization.

There's a system called the cluster system, and this is a way of clustering thematic expertise so we know exactly who is going to be leading what.

You have food, shelter, health, water, sanitation, and hygiene, which we call W.A.S.H.

So each cluster has a role in this process.

In that way, the governments and the people we serve know what they're going to get when they push the red button.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -This is the operation center for the whole emergency.

So this is where the UN and the NGOs and government authorities coordinate the response.

The Red Cross are here.

The Mozambican Red Cross, the Spanish, the Danish, all of them come and coordinate here.

You have emergency telecommunications.

That's the logistics cluster.

Here you have the air ops, and then, here we've set up health and protection and food security and shelter.

Beyond this, you have the tarmac of the airport.

We're using helicopters to try to understand where are the most vulnerable people that need support.

♪♪ -Abdul, what was that back there?

-School, school.

-School, school.

So we should be coming up close to D5, yeah?

-Yes.

This is D5.

♪♪ -D5 is part of a 20x20 kilometer grid, set up to prioritize which regions are most in need of urgent help.

♪♪ The Red Cross works with Mozambique's disaster management agency, INGC, to access the damage.

-Good morning.

-How are you?

-I'm good.

How are you?

-I'm fine.

-Ah, your English is very good.

-Yes.

I have been staying in Zimbabwe.

-In Zimbabwe.

Ah, okay.

-Yeah.

But I'm born in here.

-You're born here?

-Yes.

Now water is damaged everything.

-Mm, and it's destroyed the crops.

-It's destroyed everything.

First, wind is coming.

Second, rain.

It's raining four days.

Everybody run away.

There are people that are dying, so many.

But I don't know the number, what is the number of dying.

-So, tell me, at this stage, what is the priority for you?

Is it food, water?

-Here, can giving food, because, you see, the maize is gone.

-The maize is gone.

-Yeah.

We want food.

Food.

Special food, what I want.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -As there's so much damage to the crops, Jamie and the team grade the situation in zone D5 as serious.

They have to fly dozens more missions to assess the entire affected area.

♪♪ The coordinators in Beira must quickly analyze the data.

-G4, G5, H5, E6.

-Perfect.

Thanks.

-Okay.

-The food cluster is always one of the first to start distributing aid.

-So if you get the okay on which squares you're doing, then -- -It's already on the flight program.

I'm tasked to do -- -Perfect.

Then load.

-We can load.

-Okay.

-We need to provide food very, very quickly where there's been widespread loss of either personal stored food, community stored food, crops... but also where there's no access to shops.

These things have been destroyed.

♪♪ If you can't feed people, they're gonna die.

♪♪ ♪♪ -The World Food Programme heads up the food security cluster.

They store emergency supplies across the country, including 250 tons in Beira.

♪♪ But Cyclone Idai badly damaged the main warehouse.

♪♪ -Fortunately, part of our work in that week leading to the cyclone was protecting the food.

We actually didn't lose a single kilo, because we wrapped them really tightly with plastic sheeting.

So it was those food stocks that were in our warehouses that we used to feed the people in the first week of the cyclone.

♪♪ -Pedro's teams had to race to deliver some of these food stocks over 60 miles inland, as the flooding spread all the way up to Gorongosa National Park.

♪♪ Many of the surrounding villages are cut off, so they've been using the park's helicopters to drop over 1 1/2 tons of high-energy biscuits.

♪♪ These are meant to keep people alive for at least a few days.

♪♪ Everyone at the park HQ is helping with the relief efforts.

-Okay, sorry.

[ Speaks indistinctly ] We're here, and the yellow is the limit of the park, and the stars are places where we've delivered the high-energy biscuits from the World Food Programme, and then the little yellow houses are where we've done food drops.

-And what do you do as a normal job?

-I'm an ecologist.

[ Laughing ] So I do not deal with food kits.

I run -- Excuse me.

[ Radio chatter ] Bertus, thank you.

You're gonna pick up 18 more kits, and then you'll bring the scouts in, please.

The kits are on their way to you now.

Good.

Good.

They got there already.

Yeah, so, I'm actually an ecologist, and I'm here to run our master's in conservation biology program.

So I coordinate the program, I teach in the program, and I'm an advisor to our students.

-And today you're aircraft control.

-Yes, which is my favorite part of my job.

♪♪ -The team has managed to source food supplies to distribute to villages who've lost crops.

[ Men speaking indistinctly ] -Today we are delivering these food kits to a neighboring community called Bebedo.

It's just about 5 miles from here.

[ Indistinct conversations ] The rangers will be there with the community leader, and they'll check off the names on the list and make sure that each family receives their food kit.

-[ Reading names ] [ People repeating names ] ♪♪ -The kits are meant to last a family of five for three days, so they at least stave off the hunger for a little bit, but they're not really solving the problem long-term.

♪♪ -So far, they've delivered over 3,000 food kits.

Now they need help to scale up support.

-Up until now, we've provided all of our own food.

-There are crop... -The philanthropist who spearheaded the park's revival helps coordinate the next steps with the park warden and international aid agencies.

... -Because we -- we are also worried about our neighbors.

-Yes.

-Yes, yes.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -Yeah, I'm so proud of the team.

This disaster was unexpected, but we have 600 employees who are first responders, helping the people who live next door.

Now the international community is here.

We're extremely grateful for that.

So we can now work with the World Food Programme and the FAO, which is the food and agriculture organization of the United Nations, so that we will get help from them.

It makes me feel good to know that things will only get better.

-The UN agencies, along with independent NGOs, are flying in thousands of tons of food.

But they face huge logistical challenges.

Three weeks after the cyclone, many of the roads are still impassable.

They must rely on aircraft to deliver supplies.

-Why have I got so many aircraft on the ground?

What's going on?

What's the constraint?

I don't like seeing air assets on the ground at 9:30 in the morning.

That's not good enough.

7:00 a.m., they start running.

This airport normally sees three or four flights a day and no cargo.

We are trying to get capacity for the movement that we've got going on here.

We're bringing in air traffic controllers who are used to dealing with these movements.

We're bringing in logistics solutions to be able to move the cargo faster.

So we'll get there.

We are getting there.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -Strong logistics and strong coordination underpins everything we do.

We're bringing all of these unique and individual pieces together and working with government counterparts to reach people as quickly and as best as we can to serve their needs.

In Mozambique, I was deeply concerned about shelter.

If you're out in the elements, you are vulnerable, particularly if you're a child, particularly if you're elderly, particularly if you have some sort of disability.

You need a roof over your head.

♪♪ -Many of the homeless people used to live on the coast, in a shanty town.

The cyclone drove a 15-foot wall of water in from the sea, destroying this entire neighborhood.

♪♪ ♪♪ -To protect families like Dino's, the government has set up temporary evacuation centers like this school.

♪♪ -[ Speaking native language ] -When you are without anything, you need the safety of shelter, especially when we see women and girls and children.

They are incredibly vulnerable at that point, from disease, from a lack of water and sanitation.

♪♪ -There are more than 100 government-run evacuation centers across the country.

Aid agencies help support and track the displaced families.

♪♪ -How many families here again?

-Here?

-Yeah.

-200, 220 -- Yes.

-To 220.

Are most of the families coming from just this area?

-Yes, yes.

-Are you getting any cases of watery diarrhea, people -- -Yes.

-Yes?

-Almost 50 cases just diarrhea, but yesterday, we had cases of diarrhea and vomit and some babies.

-Okay.

-[ Babbling ] -We have two Red Cross volunteers, and they're just basically making sure that people have access to clean water, they have access to sanitation and hygiene.

In close quarters like this, when people are living in really tight quarters, health risks skyrocket.

♪♪ -One of the biggest threats is cholera.

The Red Cross monitor the numbers daily.

♪♪ In the first few weeks after the cyclone, cases soar into the thousands.

These diseases are spread in dirty water.

♪♪ When the cyclone severed water mains and contaminated community wells, it threatened the health of millions.

♪♪ People are forced to use stagnant water to survive.

But each day without clean water increases the risk of a major outbreak.

♪♪ Water and sanitation teams race to provide a reliable source of clean water.

♪♪ -Okay.

-Yeah.

-Stop.

Stop, stop, stop, stop!

We are in community of around probably 600 families.

So there's a lot of pressure to get access to safe water.

So the idea is to have something with pumps and taps, so people can directly come, push a button, and fill a bucket.

The water get pumped from the well into the tank.

The filter removes the odor, the smell, and some chemicals.

We have concentrated chlorine here.

It's removing the bacteria from the water, and then treated water gets into the bladder over there that then connects into the distribution ramp, giving access to water to everyone.

[ Children chattering in native language ] ♪♪ -Over the next few days, teams from the W.A.S.H.

cluster will set up 20 of these systems to prevent cholera outbreaks overwhelming healthcare facilities that are already struggling.

♪♪ Flooding and wind damage affected hospitals and medical centers across the region.

♪♪ An already vulnerable population has been left without access to basic healthcare.

♪♪ Many of the most vulnerable people are in the temporary camps set up by international aid agencies.

[ Indistinct conversations ] Government health workers are there to try to protect them from one of Africa's biggest killers -- malaria.

-Si.

-Mm?

-Si.

-Many people come here, because we're meant to take the people the school just come here, and then tomorrow's many disease, diarrhea, malaria.

It's difficult, very difficult.

♪♪ -With more people arriving every day, the disaster coordinators send in a mobile emergency medical team to help.

-Alright, guys, the sooner we can get that triage area set up, the better, that kind of tent over there.

So, yeah, let's set 'em up right here or outside that way.

-Yeah, Yeah.

-Okay.

-We move 'em right there they go right to 'em.

-Okay.

This where the people are kind of coming in.

We're gonna try and form a line and kind of organize it so that they aren't kind of crowding the door.

And then we come back here, and this is sort of our treatment area.

So this is where the nurses and I will see patients and administer any medications, oral re-hydration, do any wound cares or cleaning of pretty dirty wounds that we're seeing.

Julia, do you know what language he speaks?

Portuguese or Sena?

-[ Speaking foreign language ] Portuguese.

-Okay.

-Sena.

-Okay.

-Shona.

-Uh-huh.

-I'm working, but my heart is very sick, because I don't like to see my people this time.

It's very -- It's very difficult to talk this, 'cause -- Ah.

It's difficult to see that.

[ Indistinct conversations ] ♪♪ -Aid agencies have learned from previous disasters that camps like this can become hot spots for disease.

♪♪ So they pool their resources to fly in huge stocks of cholera vaccines.

♪♪ To combat the outbreak, they help the government vaccinate over 800,000 people in just seven days, and the disease is wiped out.

♪♪ As the weeks pass, people begin to return home, even to the worst-hit areas like Buzi.

♪♪ Cyclone Idai decimated this community.

♪♪ When the river burst its banks, the flooding washed away many homes.

♪♪ [ Indistinct conversations ] ♪♪ Families here will remain highly vulnerable until they can rebuild their homes.

♪♪ To help them to do this as quickly as possible, today the Red Cross are distributing temporary shelters, basic materials, and tools.

[ Man announcing in foreign language ] -This is distribution of your stuff today.

-It is, it is.

-That's fantastic.

-And it looks like they're already working, so that's even better.

-Okay, there's the shelter instruction.

That's brilliant.

-Bom dia!

-Bom dia!

-Bom dia!

-Events like this can only happen because of local agencies like the Mozambique Red Cross, who are already part of the community.

-Obrigado.

-Your name?

-Jamie.

-Jamie?

Ishmael.

-Ishmael?

-Yes.

-And your name?

-Odette.

-Odette.

Ah, you guys, really amazing.

[ Cheers and applause ] About a week and a half ago, this entire place was underwater.

You couldn't see the roads.

You couldn't see anything.

It's a disaster zone and a major, major disaster zone.

And to have a resilient community like this -- calm, collected -- is remarkable.

We wouldn't expect this anywhere in the world.

But here we are in Mozambique, and they've just gone through the most harrowing experience of their lives, and they're laughing, and they're supporting us because we're supporting them.

[ Crowd cheering ] -This is a well-organized distribution.

-[ Speaking native language ] -Now, you see the way they're engaging them.

-[ Speaking native language ] -They're talking to them in the local language.

There's a lot of bonhomie.

It's absolutely fantastic.

-[ Speaking native language ] -Actually, the toolkit is a big thing for them.

It has an awful lot of equipment.

This is stuff they can actually use for all sorts of things.

They bag it up on the way through and then carry it home.

[ Laughter ] ♪♪ [ Woman speaking native language ] -Ultimately, it is about seeing people recovering their lives again.

We do have a certain responsibility to create an environment where they can stabilize, to begin to, from the survival, to thrive.

♪♪ -The cost of the initial emergency response has run into hundreds of millions.

♪♪ Rebuilding Mozambique, in the hope that its people will thrive, will be 10 times that.

♪♪ -The building back takes an enormous amount of effort.

There is water and sanitation.

There is health.

There is education.

There's infrastructure -- all those requisites that you need to strengthen a country.

♪♪ -I have to say, the government did a fantastic job.

♪♪ It was largely their lead that opened up the roads.

And when the road to the north opened, then you can have a convoy moving 60, 70, 80 tons.

♪♪ -Since Cyclone Idai hit three months ago, the government and supporting organizations have distributed over 16,000 tons of food, staving off widespread hunger.

♪♪ In rural areas, the focus now must be on providing seeds so the communities can be self-sufficient once again.

-Okay.

Okay.

♪♪ -As soon as the farmers can harvest crops from the seeds, the food agencies can begin scaling down their operations.

♪♪ The water and sanitation teams have already started to remove their emergency water supply, as the wells are now flowing, and the pipe network has been repaired.

[ Indistinct conversations in native language ] [ Laughter ] ♪♪ But for families whose houses were destroyed, a permanent home is a long way off.

♪♪ The government has moved them from the evacuation centers into temporary camps.

♪♪ The highest concentration is in the suburbs of Beira.

♪♪ In these camps, the families have access to limited healthcare and education.

♪♪ Dino and his wife, Marta, have moved here with their two children.

The government is planning to move displaced families like Dino's out of the city to new settlements.

♪♪ Not everyone wants to go.

They fear being cut off from city life, with limited job opportunities.

But these inland sites are much less vulnerable to future disasters.

-In many of these disasters, we're learning the lessons of what needs to be put in place in order not to go through that again.

And I think you're seeing, in many countries, they are much better prepared for disasters today than they were a couple of decades ago.

♪♪ But disasters are happening more frequently now.

In the time that you're trying to gather the momentum to your building back, another crisis has come, and you've got another natural disaster to contend with.

Nine months after Cyclone Idai, the same area of Mozambique is hit again by floods, destroying many of the freshly planted crops.

[ Thunder rumbling ] As the anniversary of the disaster approaches, it's a massive setback for the recovery.

-Unfortunately, from December of 2019 through to the current period, we've had extreme flooding, not to the level or extent of Idai, but most of the crops that were planted have been wiped out.

So the food security situation, as well as the livelihood situation -- people's ability to be able to self-recover -- are severely compromised by the ongoing shocks that are being experienced in the same areas, despite the efforts of all concerned to address the longer-term recovery needs.

[ Music playing ] -After so many lost their crops and can't feed themselves, food agencies are having to continue to distribute aid.

♪♪ With dwindling resources, they're being forced to focus on the most vulnerable.

-So, who is responsible for the stamps?

We first look at mothers who are pregnant, with babies, elderly, and people living with a disability, and we give them priorities.

They're still in shock of what happened during Idai.

With the current situation, they've not been able to get harvest.

So I feel they still need the assistance.

They have one more distribution to go, and then, from there, depending on if we get the funds, they're not guaranteed to continue.

♪♪ Despite substantial donations from international governments, UN agencies, and the World Bank... ♪♪ ...they only have half the funding they need.

♪♪ This means, when it comes to allocating aid, there are tough decisions ahead.

-I call these choiceless choices.

Do you, you know, choose to leverage money that you need for health or for education?

You need both.

Why should a country be put in a position where they have to choose between water, health, and education, when there are enough resources in the world for us to do it all?

♪♪ -With limited funding, the government must prioritize those worst affected.

They've started moving families out of Beira into newly established settlements like Mutua.

♪♪ But until they can earn a living, they must rely on aid.

♪♪ [ Rooster crows ] ♪♪ Families like Dino and Marta's will continue to need support until they've built their homes and found new ways of making a living.

♪♪ But with more frequent and ferocious cyclones hitting the region, the government and international agencies need to find ways of protecting them from this destructive cycle.

♪♪ -It is a desperately unfair reality that countries such as Mozambique that have contributed minimally to the drivers of climate change are really burdening the brunt of the effects of it.

♪♪ We have to assist populations and communities in advance of extreme events in order to better position them and minimize the impacts.

♪♪ -The mangrove forests that stretch along over half of Mozambique's coastline play an important protective role by buffering storm surges and absorbing excess floodwater.

♪♪ Cyclone Idai destroyed large areas of these forests, leaving many coastal settlements exposed.

♪♪ The people of this village are now replanting a huge area to try to reverse the damage.

[ Indistinct conversations in native language ] The World Food Programme is supporting the project.

-These already existing mangrove trees is where the community is getting the shoot to plant.

So you can imagine, if we have another cyclone when the land is this bare, the community that lives here will be destroyed.

It's an amazing project.

I feel great to be part of the community that is self-driven in rehabilitating the environment, in improving their livelihood.

Their initiative, their drive, their hard work is amazing, is amazing, is amazing.

♪♪ Their will is to make sure that the whole of this part goes back to the state as it was.

♪♪ -The Mozambican government is learning that environmental programs like this are some of the most effective ways to protect their people from future natural disasters.

♪♪ Now it's looking to expand the wilderness of the national parks.

♪♪ -The national park itself bounced back immediately from the cyclone, and what I mean by that is a big, huge flood comes through here, and nature's just fine with that.

Gorongosa Park is providing, let's call it a service, of mediating the weather.

In a really rainy year, it's soaking up water.

In a really dry year, the trees are retaining moisture and keeping the area cool.

So if you're a farmer, and you live outside the park, downstream, well, when the big flood comes, you don't want your house washed away.

Well, guess what?

Gorongosa Park soaks up that water.

♪♪ You don't just think, "Here's a national park.

Oh, here's a farm.

Oh, here's a forest."

No, you think of an entire landscape and how all the pieces work together.

♪♪ -The plan is to create a vast new protected area that stretches from Mount Gorongosa in the west to the mangrove forests in the Marromeu National Reserve.

It has been dubbed "mountain to mangrove."

-A fishing community can help us to guard the mangrove forests.

-And even control the area.

-Absolutely.

We consider them on the same team.

-The Minister of Environment is championing this initiative by collaborating with the head of the country's national parks.

-[ Chuckles ] [ People singing in native language ] ♪♪ -A year on from Idai, incredible challenges remain in terms of addressing the ongoing needs.

[ People continue singing in native language ] But, equally, I have no doubt that the people of this country have a will, and they will find their way forward.

♪♪ -I know my people's poor, but my people's blood of phoenix.

Last time is many...is sad, Now is happy!

[ Crowd chanting, singing ] [ Whistle blowing rhythmically ] I happy, too.

♪♪ -Everyone wants a good story of survival.

[ Crowd cheering ] But that good story of survival is not just being saved from the event.

It's actually leaving that humanitarian setting and for people to tell you the story of one year, two years, three years after that, how you regained your life and put behind you what has been a tragedy.

[ People singing in native language ] [ Woman ululating ] [ People singing in native language ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -"When Disaster Strikes" is available on Amazon Prime Video.

♪♪ ♪♪