Fear of influx after flooding

NISHANA Harichund hears the sound of water gushing and does not sleep, fearing her Clare Estate home on the banks of the Palmiet River might be washed away in another flood.

Recalling the night of the flood, she said: “It was absolutely scary. I actually went into panic attacks because the water levels rose drastically. The only thing I knew was – evacuate my home and go to safer ground. Standing from afar, we watched the water flow over the stormwater pipes, and we said this is it, our house is now going. It was absolutely traumatising. Until this day, I only need to hear water gushing and I don’t sleep.”

Now, she and other Clare Estate residents have another fear – of an influx of homeless people wanting to build shacks in their neighbourhood.

Shamila Raamsookbhai, stressing that she was not insensitive to people having lost their shacks, said she feared the health hazard that would come with the lack of sewerage infrastructure, as well as security.

“The government … has abrogated on its responsibility with regard to housing,” she said, questioning whether individuals in authority found it convenient for informal settlements to mushroom while funds allocated to housing go missing. She said the community hoped to have a meeting with the local branch of the ruling party.

This week, EFF leader Julius Malema visited nearby informal settlements where people had suffered losses. He called on the government to use the declaration of the national state of disaster to expedite the expropriation of land so that people displaced by the floods could get decent houses. He also donated blankets and food parcels to 500 people affected by the floods and pledged R500 000 to a centre sheltering 150 former shack residents.

Meanwhile, members of Clare Estate’s formal housing community reported having encountered evidence of people on a bushy, steep slope staking out claims and even taking it upon themselves to erect a fence.