Durban — The latest weather warning has left the KwaDukuza Local Municipality concerned days after flash floods ravaged the municipality, and while officials were assessing the damages.
The South African Weather Service issued a yellow level 2 weather alert for disruptive rainfall expected over the eastern parts of the country, and an orange level 5 alert for disruptive rainfall which is expected over the north-eastern and coastal areas of KwaZulu-Natal.
The level 5 warning might affect KwaDukuza and surrounding areas on Wednesday. The rains may lead to widespread flooding.
KwaDukuza mayor Lindile Nhaca urged communities to avoid low-lying areas to avoid fatalities, while she continues to visit various areas ravaged by the weekend’s heavy rainfalls.
Seven teams led by senior officials have been deployed to assess the damages. The teams are made up of industry experts including civil engineers, disaster management officials, electricians and town planning professionals.
The physical assessments will contribute towards preparing a comprehensive report to be escalated to various organs of state for possible funding interventions and social relief of distress.
Nhaca said that at least three people had been reported to be missing while physical damages to municipal infrastructure were in the millions.
She also expressed concern over the ongoing flash floods.
“We continue to be anxious about the harsh weather patterns and we strongly attribute such conditions to climate change,” Nhaca said.
“We are devastated about the three people who went missing at the weekend and we are equally concerned about the latest weather warning. These flash floods arrived at a time when we had our hopes high in fulfilling our goal of fully recovering from the impact of the April 2022 floods which had come at a cost of over a billion.
“We are indeed taken aback as ongoing preliminary findings do reveal that some of the projects listed under the 2022 disaster expenditure have been affected and this has drastically reversed our gains as we had the goodwill of completing all the outstanding projects by June 2024,” Nhaca continued.
“It is in this sense that we will be presenting our case to the National Disaster Management Centre to classify KwaDukuza and other neighbouring areas under a state of disaster where possible. This classification will enable KwaDukuza to source intervention funding to rebuild infrastructure and to enable aid for victims of the floods.”
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