Fourteen people were rescued from a truck in a flooded river in Plettenberg Bay using a front-end loader, the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) said on Wednesday.
A massive cold front sweeping across South Africa has brought freezing conditions to much of the country, with snow reported as far north as Bloemfontein in the Free State and parts of Gauteng, including Johannesburg, as well as reports of serious flooding in the southern Cape and a tornado in Dullstroom in Mpumalanga.
NSRI spokesperson Craig Lambinon said a rescue team used a front-end loader to get to the truck stranded in the Bitou River and rescued all 10 people on it. ”They were all standing on top of the truck, with the river flowing around them,” said Lambinon.
He said the NSRI drove as far as it could until the road was too flooded, and then unhitched its boat to go nearer the truck. It eventually had to use a front-end loader to get the rescue team to the truck, with the help of Denron Construction and Seaview Plant Hire.
”They loaded all the NSRI people on to the front-end loader, formed a human chain and managed to get off all 10 people.” Nobody was injured.
Lambinon said the NSRI had been asked to help evacuate everyone below the Roodefontein Dam in Plettenberg Bay, as there were fears that the dam would burst. He said water levels were 3,5m above normal and ”the water’s still rising”.
At De Vlug near Plettenberg Bay, rivers had risen up to 3,5m above normal and NSRI personnel were helping disaster-management and emergency services, said Lambinon. He said no fatalities had been reported there.
The Knysna golf course was reported to be completely under water. The George airport reopened after being closed due to flooding since Tuesday.
Six people, including a nine-year-old child, were injured in the tornado that swept through Dullstroom on Tuesday night.
George
Four bodies were recovered on Wednesday after a car was washed away in floods in George, said southern Cape police. ”We recovered four bodies from the river, one a three-year-old girl. The others are a 15-year-old boy and two adult men,” said spokesperson Captain Malcolm Pojie. ”They were believed to be occupants of that car.”
The vehicle was washed off the Pienaar Street bridge over the Molen River in Conville, George, on Tuesday when the structure collapsed in the floods.
”The rain is still coming down in buckets. It’s a very dangerous situation, especially in the rescues,” said Pojie. He said rescuers were still searching for a fifth person believed to have been in the vehicle. No other deaths or serious injuries were reported.
George received more than 170mm of rain in 24 hours, the South African Weather Service said on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the service in Port Elizabeth, Garth Sampson, said 174,4mm of rainfall was recorded in George in the 24 hours to 8am on Wednesday.
Sampson said reports of snow in the region had been received from Graaff-Reinet, Nieu Bethesda, Colesberg, Burgersdorp, Smithfield and Redersburg.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation reported that roads and passes were closed in the Graaff-Reinet and Middelburg area due to snow. These included roads between Cradock and Graaff-Reinet, and the Lootsberg Pass between Graaff-Reinet and Middelburg. The rain will continue on Thursday.
”Moderate to heavy falls are expected to move in over the Port Elizabeth area from early evening and persist until tomorrow [Thursday] morning. These conditions will spread to the East London area later,” said Sampson, adding that conditions are expected to clear from the west from Thursday afternoon.
Police divers were sent out to search for a Volkswagen Jetta and its four occupants feared washed away in Cornville, also in the southern Cape.
People, dogs rescued
In Knysna, Lambinon said another NSRI team rescued four people and two dogs from a flooded house on the river.
The team used two rescue boats to travel 5km up the flooded river, past the White Bridge to where some houses were underwater. He said duty coxswain Rein Hofmeyer reported that it was ”raining buckets” and the rescuers had to negotiate powerful currents and flood debris, including trees and downed power lines, in the river.
They rescued Koos van der Dissen, Marge and Louis Botha, Memory Fabian and two Labrador dogs from the upper deck of a flooded double-storey house. They were taken downriver to disembark and then to hospital for treatment for hypothermia.
Lambinon said other houses on the river were also under water, but occupants there declined offers of rescue as they still had access to roads.
Border post
Meanwhile, the Monantsa Pass border post between Qwa Qwa and Lesotho has been closed due to snow and rain, Free State police said.
”There’s no electricity at the border post due to heavy snow and rain that fell in the region,” said Inspector Loraine Kalp.
The road to the border is also not safe.
Travellers to Lesotho should make use of the Caledonspoort border post near Fouriesburg.
The Monantsa Pass border post will be closed until further notice, Kalp said.
On Wednesday morning, the South African Weather Service said very cold conditions were expected over the Gauteng and Mpumalanga highveld, the North West, Free State, Northern Cape, areas of the Western Cape, the Eastern Cape interior as well as the western interior of KwaZulu-Natal.
Snowfalls were expected over the eastern high grounds of the Western Cape, Lesotho and the southern Drakensberg as well as the Eastern Cape high ground where it would be heavy in places. — Sapa