Hundreds Are Homeless

Flooding in South Africa kills 50

Photo by Sizwe Ndingane via iol.co.za

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - At least 50 people are known to be dead and hundreds are homeless in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province due to flooding. The region has been plagued with severe weather conditions since mid-December. Authorities continue to search for at least two flood victims.

"We have requested the national government to declare the Eastern Cape a national disaster," said Provincial Minister of Social Services Pemmy Majodina. "We are going to need billions of Rands to help residents reconstruct their homes and repair the damage caused by the floods."

Dozens were killed as homes and buildings collapsed around them as a result of the flooding, which washed away bridges and destroyed roads, she said. Many rural residents in the Eastern Cape live in mud huts that are unable to withstand heavy flooding. Eighteen others have died during recent electrical storms, Majodina added.

In the neighboring province of KwaZulu Natal, at least 13 people have been killed by flooding and storms.

Comments

Post new comment

Your name: *

E-mail: *

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Homepage:

Subject:

Comment: *

• Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
• Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <h1><h2><cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd><img><span>
• Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
• Images can be added to this post.
• You may insert YouTube videos with [youtube:ID]

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA

This question is to prevent automated spam submissions.

What code is in the image?: *

Enter the characters shown in the image without spaces, also respect upper and lower case.