Johannesburg – The Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane has urged the Buffalo City Metro residents who have been displaced by the disaster caused by torrential rains not to rebuild their shacks in the low-lying areas, where they were swept away by the floods.
Mabuyane spoke with flood victims during his visit to the disaster areas Mdantsane and Duncan Village at Buffalo City on Sunday, following heavy rains which started pouring down in the early hours Saturday morning and left at least nine people in the province dead.
Six of the victims died at Buffalo City Metro on separate occasions. Two of them are male and female teenagers who drowned to death in the floods at Mdantsane while four other victims including a SAPS diver Captain Pierre Marx who was part of the rescue and recovery team died in the evening at Horseshoe Valley in Nahoon River.
Three family members died at Mbhashe Local Municipality in Dutywa when a vehicle they were traveling with was swept by the river into the stream and killed three of the four family members who were in the vehicle.
A distraught mother at Mdantsane NU 3, Nonceba Pamla who lost her daughter Awethu Pamla said they were all inside their shack when it was swept away by the floods with everything of theirs and she with her other daughter was able to grab tree branches until they were rescued.
She said: “I then realised that Awethu was not there and we started searching for her, shouting her name but she was nowhere to be found. Her remains were discovered in the drainage pipe with her body stuck in the pipe while her legs were up.”
Pamla said Awethu was more than just a daughter, she was her best friend and a well-performing pupil who was aiming to study to be a Social Worker.
“She wrote Grade 12 exams and I’m certain she’s going to pass with distinctions because she was among the best pupils in the province, she was one of the learners who were taken for student camps before matric exams,” said Pamla.
Scores of residents in the township of Mdantsane and Duncan Village displaced and are currently housed in public halls, while others sought refuge from their relatives.
Some of the victims who were placed at Border Technical College complained about being mixed as men and women, being placed in a hall with no ablution facilities and no showers, and said they had to walk to the nearby community to relieve themselves and to shower.
Humanitarian Aid organisation, the Gift of the Givers was on the disaster scene immediately after the floods Saturday, providing hundreds of the victims with mattresses, blankets, and meals.
Other local NGOs, Business Forums, and Shoprite also joined the disaster relief support for the victims.
Corene Conradie from the Gift of the Givers said many of the flood victims were unable to save any of their belongings and the Gift of the Givers is looking for ways to assist them to rebuild their lives.
“Gift of the Givers is on the ground assessing the situation, the immediate response is to food, blankets, and mattresses. People have lost all their clothing and many didn’t save anything from the floods and they are left with nothing and no money to rebuild or even buy a loaf of bread, so we are assisting those families on the ground.”
Mabuyane said all the affected people who were living in the low-lying areas will be placed in temporary shelters and will be provided with houses in the long run.
Accompanied by the Cogta MEC Xolile Nqatha, Human Settlement MEC Nonceba Kontsiwe, Buffalo City mayor Xola Pakati, and other government officials, Mabuyane told the affected residents that the area where they had built their shacks was not suitable for housing.
“There is the line where the land for housing ends and no one should build beyond that line.
We are aware that there’s a housing backlog and one of the issues that have come to my attention is that when we register housing beneficiaries we give more attention to people who are already staying in the informal settlements, people who have come for work opportunities in the city, we forget about those who live in family backyards or renting backyard spaces.
Most of these shacks belong to people who moved from backyards and took any available land to build,” said Mabuyane.
He said the government together with BCM Metro are still quantifying the cost of damage.
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