Imizamo Yethu declared disaster area

MAYOR Patricia de Lille has declared Imizamo Yethu informal settlement a disaster area, a month after a devastating fire there killed three people and left 15 000 homeless.

De Lille’s said this would enable emergency procurement procedures, and facilitate the acceleration of the city’s responses, post-disaster recovery and rehabilitation.

Those left homeless include 237 families currently living in tents on a sports field, and more than 100 who have found refugee in community halls, with family, friends, and work colleagues.

The city announced that these families would be moved to temporary relocation areas in Hout Bay.

De Lille said relocating the families meant the fire victims would “have their privacy and independence back” until they can be moved to the fire site, which the city was busy “super-blocking”.

The families would live in the temporary relocation areas (TRAs) for three months before moving back to the fire site.

“We have once again reached an amicable solution.”

De Lille said the city “was ambitious” when it thought the super-blocking project would be completed quickly.

The first of the TRAs, on the Imizamo Yethu sports field, will welcome 114 families this week.

Ten standpipes have already been erected to meet their sanitation needs.

A second TRA will accommodate 160 families in Disa Site 2.