South Africa: At least 8 killed amid heavy rains, floods in Cape Town

At least eight people, including four children, died by electrocution in two separate incidents after days of heavy rain-triggered floods in informal settlements near the South African city of Cape Town, according to media reports citing local officials, on Tuesday (Sep 26). This comes amid reports of record levels of rain in the larger Western Cape region.

What happened?

According to the Cape Town Disaster Risk Management service, the deaths occurred on the outskirts of the southern port city. Four people died in the Driftsands settlement on the eastern outskirts after floods caused issues with the electricity connections and four children were electrocuted and died in the Klipfontein settlement, said the officials.

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These incidents, as per media reports, have been attributed to illegal power connections in many homes in the poor townships on the outskirts of the country’s second-biggest city and while these makeshift electricity connections are deemed dangerous they are relatively widespread.

Torrential rainfall and floods in South Africa

Anton Bredell, the provincial minister for environmental affairs, reported that the Western Cape region witnessed record levels of rain on Sunday (Sep 24) and Monday, as per AFP.

In the last three days, a storm front hit the Cape Town area and the larger Western Cape province caused rivers to burst their banks and flooding residential areas and major roads, both in coastal regions and inland.

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This has since prompted the evacuations of hundreds of residents. On Tuesday, Bredell said that things were “under control” and that they were busy “with the mop up, the recovery phase.”

The flood-hit regions also witnessed widespread power outages affecting as many as 80,000 across the province, the national power utility had said previously. However, this number was revised to 15,000, as of Tuesday after the rain eased.

Overall, at least 1,500 structures and 6,000 people were affected by flooding, said the provincial minister.

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The recent floods have been attributed to the cold fronts which are a common phenomenon in the Cape Town region and the Western Cape province.

On Monday (Sep 25), the South African Weather Services issued an ‘Orange level 9’ warning and indicated the possibility of further flooding as the weather system moves east across South Africa.

(With inputs from agencies)

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