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What happened, where and when?
In the latest quater of 2023, South Africa has seen some of the south provinces experiencing floods and severe weather storms with successive strikes from September to November. This led to floods incidence in some locations, notably Western cape and Kwazulu with important needs un-covered from existing stakeholders that require South Africa Red Cross to deploy an emergency intervention in the beginning of October 2023.
Indeed, from 23 to 26 September 2023, Western Cape faced heavy rains and flooding resulting in loss of life and displacement of residents, severe damage to private and public infrastructure, roads, as well as power outages across the province. The initial assessment revealed that approximately 16,000 people were affected by floods with 11 fatalities which resulted from electrocution by illegal electricity connections. Additionally, more than 8,600 structures including 7,100 informal structures and 250- schools were damaged in the following areas: Sir Louwry’s Pass, Nomzamo, Houtbay, Greyton, Montique, Paarl, Strand, and Macassar. It is of importance to note that the Kuils River overflowed, flooding Mfuleni Township and forcing around 2,710 families to evacuate to Faure and Sandvlei evacuation Centres. The DREF was released to assist the Western cape affected communities.
The South African Weather Services kept issuing the weather alerts of additional floods to be witnessed across the country. In late October 2023 to mid-November, heavy rainfall and flooding occurred affecting different parts of the KZN province namely, eThekwini, uMgungundlovu, uMkhanyakude, Somkhele and KwaMyeki areas. 8,221 people (1,625 households) with homeless families were reported as affected. The Kwazulu floods made 12 fatalities, 43 injuries confirmed and damages to critical infrastructure (schools and community halls) including households and livelihoods.
After weeks of mobilization, monitoring and stretching internal resources to meet uncovered essentials means of life and urgent lifesaving interventions, the NS managed to scaled-up the support in Kwa-Zulu Natal under the DREF scope.