Seven people have already died as a result of recent torrential rains, and many are still missing, according to crisis management centers in numerous provinces. As a result, on Monday evening, South Africa declared a state of national calamity.
The government has declared a national emergency, the presidency announced in a statement, “to enable a sustained and coordinated reaction to the response to the impacts of the floods.”
Not yet disclosed is a national death toll. But 7 of the country’s 9 provinces are at threat from the terrible weather, mainly those on the east coast that is accessible from the Indian Ocean. Nonala Ndlovu, a spokesperson for the emergency management center of the coastal province KwaZulu-Natal (KZN, south-east), told AFP that at least five people died there.
One of them is a newborn child who, according to a statement, perished in a house flood. And after attempting to cross a flooded river, several persons are still missing.
Local authorities report that two other fatalities occurred in the adjacent province of Mpumalanga in the northeast.
“Farmers have suffered crop and livestock losses,” the president’s office said in a statement. The bad weather will require the provision of “temporary shelter, food and blankets to people who have lost their homes, as well as costly and large-scale rehabilitation of infrastructure.”