A South African National Defence Force helicopter from Pretoria was expected to deliver food parcels to flood victims in Limpopo on Wednesday, the province’s housing and local government department said.
”Those residents are cut off from the outside world. We can only access them by air,” said departmental spokesperson Clayson Monyela.
The food parcels will be airlifted to about three villages near Mafefe and villages near Penge. More than 1 000 villagers are stranded in the Mafefe area, as are about 178 families in Penge.
Roads into the villages were made inaccessible after dams and rivers burst, due to flooding of the Olifants River last Friday.
Monyela said the parcels consist of mielie meal, cooking oil, milk and non-perishable items such as canned meat and fish. The cost of the parcels as well as plans to rebuild houses and roads destroyed by the flooding has been allocated from the province’s disaster fund.
The overall costs of the flooding will only be finalised by the end of the week.
Monyela said reports that government officials had not reacted quickly enough to calls for supplies were incorrect.
”The weather was not playing along. It was raining heavily and the roads were impassable. I can understand their situation but I can assure you that government has been doing everything possible to respond to their conditions,” he said.
Monyela said one person — Sonnyboy Mokgotho — had died after he was swept away by the overflowing Olifants River on Saturday. A post-mortem indicated that Mokgotho had not drowned but died from extreme cold.
No other casualties have been reported and Monyela said infrastructure repairs have begun. ”It has stopped raining, the shine is shining and some of the waters have started to subside, so we are able to do repair work.” — Sapa