ReliefWeb

LUSAKA, Dec 17 (Reuters) - More floods will hit parts of Zambia, where some people are already surviving on wild fruits after excessive rains caused crop failure earlier this year, Vice President George Kunda said.

Kunda said a weather forecast had shown that 34 of the southern African country's 73 districts would again be hit by floods, reducing the country's white maize output to 1.2 million tonnes in the 2007/08 season from 1.3 million tonnes the previous season.

"We have developed a contingency plan targeting 31 districts in the event of occurrence of the floods," Kunda said on state television late on Tuesday.

He said the government had sought assistance from mainly Western donors to prepare for outbreaks of the water-borne disease cholera, which has spread to Zambia from its southern neighbour Zimbabwe.

"The government, in collaboration with cooperating partners, has established various forms of mitigation responses covering health, water, sanitation, accommodation, food, communication, education and infrastructure," Kunda said.

Zimbabwe is facing a cholera epidemic that the United Nations says has killed almost 1,000 people.

Kunda said the government had sent teams to assess the gravity of hunger in Southern province.

"After reports that people are living on wild fruits, a team has been dispatched to determine the gravity of the vulnerability ... the government is actively and continuously assessing the situation and is defining the appropriate responses," Kunda said.

Zambia's Food Reserve Agency (FRA) is due to import 100,000 tonnes of maize to plug a deficit the country is facing, which has partly caused prices of the staple ground maize meal to soar, officials say.

Earlier this year, floods destroyed crops and infrastructure, including homes, leaving thousands of people without food and shelter.

(Reporting by Shapi Shacinda; Editing by Serena Chaudhry and Dominic Evans)