Heavy winter rains and an overflowing sewerage pipe have flooded areas of eThembeni in Khayelitsha. (David Harrison/M&G)
Residents have to endure the overwhelming stench of raw sewage spilling from a blocked drain as they struggle to prevent it from reaching their homes in the Ethembeni informal settlement in Khayelitsha, Western Cape.
A deep ditch running alongside the residential structures is evidence of the usual trail the sewage-contaminated wastewater takes before reaching the houses.
As residents try to stop the foul mess from running its course, a group of women, all dependent on social grants, voice their concern.
“The drain is blocked three to four times a week. It is not the rain’s fault,” one tells the Mail & Guardian. Another adds that they have to cross the street to relieve themselves in the bushes because they have no access to toilets or running water. A truck comes only once a week on Sundays to bring water, they say.
Recent winter storms in Cape Town have exacerbated the situation — particularly in low-lying and flood-prone areas — making it difficult to distinguish between rainwater and sewage in some areas.
On Sunday, Anton Bredell, the Western Cape member of the executive council for local government, environmental affairs and development planning, said nearly 6 000 people were affected by the winter storms that lasted a week in the region.
The greatest challenges were experienced in Cape Town.
“A concern is the disruption of stormwater and flood management systems brought about by unlawful land occupation across the city,” Bredell said. “This resulted in flooding not only of the invaded areas but also of adjacent roads and formal suburbs.”
Waterlogged
The Cape Town council has classified Ethembeni as an illegally occupied settlement in a waterlogged area. Situated not far from the Zandvliet and Khayelitsha sewerage system, it was built last year before the government first imposed Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.
Community leader Alex Madikane, 49, proudly claims to have been the first man to have built a shack in Ethembeni after moving from Enkanini, also in Khayelitsha.
As he stares across the bleak landscape of shacks submerged in the water, he says the recent floods have affected 650 people in the settlement.
Madikane points to a large area covered with water that prevents dozens of people including a pregnant mother from reaching their shacks.
“It is not rainwater you see, it is sewage,” he says, a claim borne out by the stench.
Standing next to Madikane, the pregnant mother, surrounded by three children, says the flooding is not new, although this year’s occurrence is worse than previous ones.
The father of a teenage son who lost all his furniture, says it is not the first time his house has been flooded after heavy rain. He will now have to stay with his sister in Makhaza, also in Khayelitsha, until he can return in summer.
Madikane explains Ethembeni means hope in isiXhosa, a reference to residents’ hope and belief that “one day someone will help them”.
Bulelani Qolani, whose eviction while naked a year ago from his shack in Ethembeni by the city’s anti-land invasion unit caused a public outcry, has also been affected by the recent winter storms.
The South African Human Rights Commission and the Economic Freedom Fighters have launched a court battle to have Qolani’s eviction be declared unlawful. The case is ongoing at the Cape Town high court.
Land invasions cause flooding
JP Smith, the Cape Town mayoral committee member for safety and security, says a high number of flooding incidents are expected this year due to a spike in unlawful land occupations across the metro.
“Assessments have found that the majority of the reported flooded areas are situated on land that is not suitable for habitation. More than 70% of the newly occupied areas, mostly as a result of organised large-scale unlawful occupation since the start of the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, have been created on unsuitable, flood-prone land, dams and water retention ponds,” he said in a press statement.
The city recently approved R88.5-million for the 2021-22 financial year for services to communities living on unlawfully occupied land. Xanthea Limberg, the mayoral committee member for water and waste, announced on Tuesday that the council had approved the funds to “continue to action its Covid-19 temporary emergency services to help communities, who have unlawfully occupied land, and who do not have easy access to water, to reduce the spread of the virus.”
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