"Floods have rendered 40,000 people homeless... crops and livestock have also been washed away in Chikwawa district alone," district commissioner Harrison Lende said.

He said last week's floods "swept through 131 villages and demolished 569 houses" in the flood-prone Chikwawa district, 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the commercial capital Blantyre, after two rivers burst their banks.

Floods have also left 1,000 people without homes in Nsanje, the country's southernmost district bordering Mozambique, following flooding last week after the Ruo river overflowed.

Lende said 3,737 hectares (9,230 acres) of much-needed maize had been destroyed in Chikwawa alone, saying "crop fields of maize, cotton and sorgum have been left bare."

The two districts are also among the worst affected by famine in this southern African nation where up to five million Malawians out of 12 million people face hunger after the worst drought in over a decade cut production of maize, the staple food, according to aid agencies and the government.

President Bingu wa Mutharika in October declared the food crisis a national disaster.

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