The number of deaths recorded in South Africa after the heavy rains that hit the country earlier this week, causing a scenario described by authorities and experts as one of the worst in the country’s history, reaches 395, according to a balance sheet released on Friday. (15). More than 41,000 people were affected.
Most of the victims belonged to the region of Durban, a port city in the province of KwaZulu-Natal that has access to the Indian Ocean. Access to electricity and potable water was interrupted. The government released an initial package of 1 billion rand (R$ 32 million) to help the region, declared as a disaster area.
Authorities have not provided information on the number of missing, and rescuers say that after five days since the start of the rains, there is little hope of finding survivors. “Now our work consists mainly of recovering bodies,” Travis Trower, a local firefighter, told AFP.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa described the catastrophe as “never seen in the country before” and was quick to link it to the climate emergency. The country, especially its southeastern coast, has become more vulnerable to storms and floods due to the warming of the Indian Ocean, a trend that scientists project will worsen in the coming decades.
But experts also point out that another factor helps to intensify the effects of the climate crisis: the lack of urban planning. More than 25% of the South African population lives in informal settlements, according to 2018 World Bank data.
“These are houses built where people find open spaces close to economic opportunities; they lack basic amenities and infrastructure, such as adequate roads and drainage systems,” describes Hope Magidimisha-Chipungu, a professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in a recent article in the journal The Conversation. “This leaves residents more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as flooding.”
In 2020, the City of Durban launched a climate action plan, which outlines strategies for greening energy, reducing flood risk, improving waste management and conserving water, with the aim of becoming a carbon neutral municipality. until 2050.
While climate activists acknowledged that the plan was progressive, they already signaled that there was little evidence that the devices were, in fact, being implemented.
The country is on high alert as weather forecasts point to a storm and risk of further flooding over the Easter weekend, particularly in the Free State and Eastern Cape provinces.
The rainfall reached last weekend was the highest in at least six decades in the country. More than 250 schools were affected, some partially destroyed, and local authorities announced the opening of around 20 emergency shelters to serve just over 2,000 people.
Many residents were seen this Friday cleaning the edges of local beaches. On the popular beach of Umhlanga, computer scientist Morne Mustard, 35, helped to collect logs, leaves and other debris. He survived the floods, which he described as scenes of “absolute and horrific devastation” to AFP.
South African Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana told local broadcaster Newsroom Afrika that for now, the accumulated damage is estimated at billions of rand. “We are still in the emergency aid stage; the second stage will be recovery and repair,” he said.
Christopher Trisos, lead author of the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on Africa, describes the current moment as one of learning. “The report found that 90% of African cities still do not have consistent climate adaptation plans, which is extremely worrying,” the Cape Town scientist told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “But there are still opportunities for adaptation.”
South Africa is the country where the flood that left the most economic damage on the African continent in the last 50 years was recorded. In 1987, such an extreme event relegated more than US$1.72 billion in economic losses, according to data compiled by a recent report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the United Nations’ climate arm. .
