A GRIEVING mother who lost three of her children during the torrential downpour in the early hours of Wednesday has issued a desperate plea for the swift relocation of families living in the Gwala Street Transit Camp, in Lamontville, Durban.
This after Lulama Dingiswayo’s children, two girls aged 5 and 16 and an 11-year-old boy, was swept away as they attempted to flee from flood waters that surged through the transit camp.
Dingiswayo, who lived with her husband and their seven children in a one-room tin house, was among the scores of people who were relocated to the transit camp, in the aftermath of the 2021 floods that devastated parts of Umlazi.
Her 16-year-old was a pupil at Lamontville High School, while the other two were at Bantuvukani Primary.
“We want to be moved from the transit camp to a safe place because this is the second flooding incident we’ve experienced. In 2022, our place was flooded but no one died. This time we have suffered a huge loss,” Dingiswayo said.
The death toll from the flooding presently stands at seven that figure is expected to rise rescue teams go in search of people reported as “still missing”.
The flooding at the camp has left residents of the camp now destitute, this in spite of indicating to the municipality that the area was susceptible to flooding. Those appeals were ignored.
In May, ahead of the national elections, The Daily News visited the informal settlement, where residents expressed the same concerns about their living conditions.
They warned that disaster was likely, as many homes, made of corrugated iron, sat less than ten metres from the banks of the uMlazi River, which claimed the lives of five of the dead.
Musa Cele, a long-time resident and community leader, had made pleas to the government for their urgent relocation to safer accommodation, revealing that they had been displaced from his previous home, a settlement in uMlazi, in 2008,due to flooding.
“We have been warning the government that the living conditions here were a ticking time bomb. The river is very close to the houses that the people lived in. Five people have died now, and you’ll see them coming here to offer their condolences. We are warning them once again that if people are not relocated, there will be more tragic events,” said Cele.
Cele, who was among community members who rescued others, also narrowly escaped being swept away.
He recounted the scenes that unfolded on Tuesday evening and into the next morning.
“The started raining heavy at around 11pm. Some of the residents fled from their homes, fearing being swept as the river filled up rapidly," said Cele.
Others shouted for help, prompting a collective community mobilisation to assist those in danger, said Cele.
Some were unable to reach safety in attempting to navigate the fast-rising waters of the uMlazi River.
A family member of one of the deceased residents, whose body was yet to be recovered, asked for the Daily News to contact her when the body was found.
“I am sorry I can’t talk right. Please call me at a later time when we have found the body,” she said in passing.
Lamontville Ward 74 councillor, Nolubabalo Mthembu-Zondi said the stream adjacent to the transit camp was loaded with debris and trees, resulting in water overflowing into the camp. Mthembu-Zondi was awaiting the municipality and the provincial government’s directive on the matter.
Heavy rains battered various parts of the province on Tuesday resulting in flooding and mudslides.
The Minister of Human Settlements, Thembi Simelane, has directed a team of officials responsible for emergency housing within the National Department of Human Settlements (NDHS) to speed up the process of assisting the flood-affected households in KwaZulu Natal.
eThekwini Municipality mayor Cyril Xaba said about 280 families in Lamontville were affected by heavy rains and will be relocated to temporary shelters as mop-up operations continue.
The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) confirmed that the death toll had risen to seven and that teams had been deployed to conduct evacuations and assist affected communities.
Cogta MEC Revevend Thulasizwe Buthelezi said the most affected areas were the N2 at Murchison, the Umbango Bridge, the Nkongweni Bridge at Margate, and Isipingo on the N2 south of Durban, amongst others.
“No area is safe now. We need to be careful in the way we do things. These floods keep damaging our infrastructure. It puts us behind in our programmes. It means we must brace ourselves for it,” Xaba said.
He urged amakhosi and izinduna, when they allocate land for people to live on, to consider areas that were resilient.
“The city doesn’t have land, yet we have over 500 informal settlements.”
Transport and Human Settlements MEC, Siboniso Duma sent condolences to the families who have lost their loved ones. Duma said there was a scarcity of land and the available areas were not suitable.
Zanele Mtshali of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a shack dwellers’ movement in South Africa said “The government has blood on its hands".
“The government doesn’t care about people’s lives. Transit camps are unhealthy, in winter they become too cold and in summer, they become too hot and children develop heat rashes. We have been complaining about this, but when you live in a shack, no one wants to listen to you. The government has blood on its hands. The ANC government has let us down for many years,” she said.
DAILY NEWS