Five South Africans are believed to be trapped in the hurricane-stricken city of New Orleans, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Friday.
”We have received notification from our embassy in Washington of five South Africans trapped,” spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said.
Further details of the five were not immediately available.
Thousands of people are reported to have died, and about one million displaced, when the category-four Hurricane Katrina hit the United States Gulf Coast this week.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said natural disasters like these highlight the need for countries in the world to work together to address contributing factors, such as climate change.
”We all feel very much for the people of New Orleans,” she told reporters after a meeting in Pretoria with her Omani counterpart, Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah.
”Our hearts go out to those families and relatives and the American people as a whole.
”It reminds us we all have to work together to do everything we can to … mitigate these kinds of natural disasters — climate change etc. This is why it is so important for the world to work together to control some of the human acts [resulting in] climate change.”
The US has been criticised for its contribution to global warming and for refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse emissions.
Some scientists have reportedly suggested that global warming is contributing to an increase in the ferocity of hurricane activity. — Sapa