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Africa: The Climate Action We Need to Avoid Deadly Floods
allAfrica, 3 May 2022
As communities in South Africa's coastal province KwaZulu-Natal continue to search for their missing loved ones after devastating floods that killed more than 400 people, the… Read more »
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South Africa: Building From the Ground Up - On Much Needed Interventions Following the Fallout From Kwazulu-Natal Disaster
Africa In Fact, 26 April 2022
The consequences of South Africa's crumbling infrastructure have been palpably witnessed in the devastation caused by the floods in KwaZulu-Natal. Furthermore, in an implicit… Read more »
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South Africa: Burials Bring More Pain for Durban Flood Victims
New Frame, 29 April 2022
For impoverished families who have not received the promised government assistance for funerals, burying their loved ones has been yet another difficult and heartbreaking… Read more »
The Climate Action We Need to Avoid Deadly Floods
As communities in South Africa's coastal province KwaZulu-Natal continue to search for their missing loved ones after devastating floods that killed more than 400 people, the overwhelming impact of the climate crisis is again front and centre. A scheduled meeting of world environmental body the Campaign for Nature, with its Global Steering Committee (GSC) that included South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, said: "There is no doubt that what has happened here is yet another reminder that we must do something fast."
The deadly floods that racked KwaZulu-Natal and parts of the Eastern Cape led to a declaration of a national disaster by Ramaphosa after an assessment of the damage was made by the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and other government representatives. "These floods are the worst floods that we have ever seen in living memory. The impact of these floods are well beyond the province," Dlamini-Zuma said.
Dhesigen Naidoo for ISS (Institute for Security Studies) wrote that governments suffer from "lethargy ... in reducing the global carbon budget" and the latest floods in South Africa "are the latest in a series of environmental disasters on the continent in the past few months, and the need for smart early-warning systems and the climate-proofing of South Africa's infrastructure".
InFocus
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Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) Minister, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, has noted progress made in assisting those affected by the recent floods in KwaZulu-Natal Read more »
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Repairing or rebuilding damaged infrastructure will be a priority in the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province's recovery after the deadliest storm to strike the country in li Read more »
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The death toll from devastating floods in and around Durban in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province has risen to 306, the government said on Wednesday April 12, 2022, Read more »
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa visited flood-stricken parts of KwaZulu-Natal on April 13, 2022 to offer support to affected communities and assess the response of government and civil society to this critical situation.
