DURBAN: At least 60 people have been killed and more than 1,000 have fled their homes after heavy rains caused flooding and mudslides along South Africa’s eastern coast, authorities said on Wednesday.
Most of the deaths were in KwaZulu-Natal province. Flooding also killed at least three people in neighboring Eastern Cape province, state broadcaster SABC said.
The rains mainly hit areas around the port city of Durban. Multiple dwellings collapsed in mudslides, said Robert McKenzie, a KwaZulu-Natal Emergency Medical Services spokesman.
Rescue workers were digging through collapsed buildings on Wednesday.
Victor da Silva, a resident of the coastal town of Amanzimtoti, said his family managed to evacuate before the floods destroyed their home and cars.
“On Monday, the water was just crazy. And yesterday morning I got here, everything was fine, my garage was still here, the other part of the house was still here, and it just couldn’t stop raining,” Da Silva said. “And then an hour and a half later, everything poof (vanished) because the rain just hasn’t stopped.
Authorities in southern Tanzania ordered evacuations of residents from low-lying areas and the closure of schools and offices ahead of landfall of Tropical Cyclone Kenneth on neighboring Mozambique’s coast on Thursday.
“We’ve decided to evacuate all residents of valleys and other low-lying areas and we advise them to seek refuge at public spaces,” Mtwara regional commissioner Gelasius Byakanwa, told reporters.
Johan Fourie said he fled his home in Amanzimtoti, Kwazulu-Natal, just before part of it collapsed.
“I nearly lost my life, and my neighbor, I believe, is in hospital,” Fourie told eNCA television.
The region had been hit by heavy rains for days, but authorities did not foresee the extent of the downpour late on Monday, said Lennox Mabaso, a spokesman for the provincial Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs department.
“As a result, there was flooding and some structures were undermined and collapsed on people,” Mabaso said.
Some people were swept away by the water, he added.
President Cyril Ramaphosa visited affected communities in KwaZulu-Natal on Wednesday and was expected in the Eastern Cape in the next few days.
“This is partly what climate change is about, that it just hits when we least expect it,” he said.
Last week, 13 people were killed during an Easter service in KwaZulu-Natal when a church wall collapsed after days of heavy rains and strong winds.
More than 60 dead in South Africa flooding after heavy rains
More than 60 dead in South Africa flooding after heavy rains
- Rescue workers were digging through collapsed buildings on Wednesday
- The rains mainly hit areas around the port city of Durban
End of US-Russia nuclear pact a ‘grave moment’: UN chief
- Guterres urged Washington and Moscow “to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework”
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday urged the United States and Russia to quickly sign a new nuclear deal, as the existing treaty was set to expire in a “grave moment for international peace and security.”
The New START agreement will end Thursday, formally releasing both Moscow and Washington from a raft of restrictions on their nuclear arsenals.
“For the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States of America,” Guterres said in a statement.
The UN secretary-general added that New START and other arms control treaties had “drastically improved the security of all peoples.”
“This dissolution of decades of achievement could not come at a worse time — the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is the highest in decades,” he said, without giving more details.
Guterres urged Washington and Moscow “to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework.”
Russia and the United States together control more than 80 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads but arms agreements have been withering away.
New START, first signed in 2010, limited each side’s nuclear arsenal to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads — a reduction of nearly 30 percent from the previous limit set in 2002.
It also allowed each side to conduct on-site inspections of the other’s nuclear arsenal, although these were suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic and have not resumed since.
