The chance of a miscarriage or stillbirth can be up to 8% higher during floods or long periods of heat than in normal times. That's why the health department will soon send warnings about dangerous weather to pregnant women and mothers of young children using their maternal health messaging service, MomConnect.

Nobuntu Malgas,* (24) lost her balance when a torrent swept her off her feet, pulling her into a gushing stream.

She was almost eight months' pregnant and on her way to the shops in her hometown, Port St Johns in the Eastern Cape, to buy clothes for her unborn baby.

But what was meant to be an ordinary trip into town turned into a gut-wrenching ordeal.

"It's a miracle that I survived that day. When I tried to cross the street, the water was already above my knee," she remembers.

It was a Monday in mid-October 2023, but she's "not sure of the exact date". She remembers it was pouring, though.

Weather warnings and news reports from Monday, 16 October show heavy downpours had quickly turned roads into what looked like rivers.

That kind of rainfall was unexpected for early spring. Data from the past 30 years shows the area usually gets at most about 90mm of rain in October, but in 2023, 156mm fell that month, records show - almost twice as much as what's typical for that period.

This was the second time...