Ramaphosa rushes home
President cuts short summit to visit KZN devastation
President Cyril Ramaphosa is cutting short his trip to Mozambique to visit KwaZulu-Natal, where floods have left more than 59 people dead and hundreds homeless and have caused damage estimated to run into billions of rand.
Ramaphosa, who was due to spend three days at a Southern African Development Community (Sadc) summit in Maputo, is expected to arrive in KwaZuluNatal on Wednesday, members of the National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure, which advises on crisis management, were told on Tuesday, Business Day has established.
He will meet local leaders to discuss progress in restoring services and plans to rebuild damaged property and infrastructure in a province that is facing more catastrophe just nine months after it was hit by riots that killed more than 300 people there and in Gauteng.
The devastation of those events, estimated to have cost R50bn, is the reason that SA’s economy has not returned to its size before the Covid-19 outbreak, the Reserve Bank said in its monetary policy review released on Tuesday.
At an emergency meeting late on Tuesday the provincial executive council chaired by premier Sihle Zikalala called for the declaration of a state of disaster for the province.
“Declaring a state of disaster will enable the province to apply for emergency funding from the National Treasury and grant authority to reprioritise our current budgets in order to address the reconstruction work necessary to bring the province back to normal,” Zikalala said.
Durban has become the epicentre of tragedy, and a rapidly escalating humanitarian crisis is developing in the province. The main arterial trade route, the N3, which is crucial for getting supplies to the economic heartland of Gauteng and other parts of Southern Africa, has experienced disruptions. The Durban port has been closed until further notice. Communication has been hit and MTN and Vodacom reported that about 900 of their towers are down.
The catastrophic flooding is another example of how extreme weather is becoming more common as the planet heats up due to greenhouse gas emissions, though scientists cannot say with absolute certainty that a particular event is caused by rising emissions. After the release of the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change earlier in April, António Guterres, secretarygeneral of the UN, said there is a growing risk that the world will become uninhabitable if governments do not act fast and change their energy policies.
“As weather scientists, we cannot attribute individual weather events occurring on short time scales to longer-term events occurring over years or decades,” the SA Weather Service said in response to questions from Business Day. “However, we can state with confidence that globally, as a direct result of global warming and associated climate change, all forms of severe and extreme weather are becoming more frequent and more extreme.”
Three days of heavy rain have left families trapped in their homes, with many people still unaccounted for and hundreds,
even thousands, left homeless. Search and rescue teams are looking for the missing, who are believed to be washed out to sea or buried under thick rubble.
The SA National Defence Force has deployed personnel including nurses, doctors, paramedics and soldiers to aid exhausted rescue and emergency crews, while other provinces sent helicopters and reinforcements. In some areas boats, “rubber ducks” and jet skis were still being used by late Tuesday afternoon to rescue families in submerged suburbs. Cemeteries were desecrated in the deluge, and coffins and dead bodies were floating about at Ntuzuma, north of Durban.
Shipping operations were at a standstill, with damage to the road networks leading into the Port of Durban affecting access to the terminals.
“As a precautionary measure and for safety reasons, operations across the Durban terminals had to be suspended.
“Shipping has been suspended until further notice as a result of environmental damage caused by the adverse weather, and vessels on berth are on standby,” said Transnet spokesperson Ayanda Shezi.
eThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda said basic services have been severely disrupted and people are in urgent need of shelter, food, protection and access to health care and safe drinking water.
“Local disaster management teams continue to monitor highrisk areas across the city.
“Residents who experience any incidents should contact their ward councillor or local municipality,” Kaunda said.
More than 500 schools have been closed and about 100 have been damaged, and residents in low-lying areas have been urged to stay at home.
Lindiwe Jileka from Hammersdale lost her daughter and four grandchildren in an instant when flood waters burst through an elevated train rail embankment and engulfed their home with rocks and debris.
“My daughter was 37 and the breadwinner. I loved my grandchildren. They were buried alive,” she wept.
Business is concerned that the road and infrastructure damage will further set back the province’s recovery from the devastation caused by the riots. The tourism-intensive economy was also hit by Covid-19 and travel restrictions that closed it off from international travellers.
“The province is on a slow rebuild and the infrastructure damage alone could run into billions of rand.
“It will take a few days to get the exact assessment. It’s going to be a massive cost to rebuild.
“Tourism will be heavily affected this long weekend as the beaches will need a major cleanup,” said Minara Chamber of Commerce president Solly Suleman.
The Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry said it was concerned that the road to recovery will be long.
“These road networks represent crucial business infrastructure, providing a linkage between business and industries in eThekwini,” CEO Palesa Phili said.
“Many businesses cannot afford further losses as they are still recovering from the 2021 July unrest and the Covid-19 pandemic.”
/Sandile Ndlovu