With the long weekend approaching, a cold front is set to make landfall across Cape Town, as areas outside of the metropole have flooded due to the collapse of two retention dams.
Residents in Chatsworth and Riverlands just outside Malmesbury had been hit hard after the Riverlands Dam walls burst.
People awoke in their homes to find them submerged in water, while others lost everything as their homes washed away.
The humanitarian organisation, Gift of the Givers was first to respond to the disaster, and its spokesperson, Ali Sablay said its crew members have already been activated.
“Two retention dams above Riverlands Dam in Swartland Municipality District, Cape Town, collapsed in the early hours of this morning, with the inherent danger of a third dam collapsing with the enormous volume of water flowing into that dam. Thousands are displaced, with two people missing. More details to follow as daylight increases visibility.
@iolnews The Riverlands Dam wall burst resulting in flooding in the greater Chatsworth area just outside Malmesbury in the Western Cape.
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“Gift of the Givers receives calls for urgent intervention from the municipality, municipal manager, disaster management, and several community members. Our teams with supplies are en route. Riverlands Primary School has been handed over to Gift of the Givers as a base from which to set out operations,” Sablay said.
Pictures and videos of the floods are being shared across social media platforms.
In July, the Western Cape was hit hard by adverse weather conditions with torrential rainfall and gale-force winds resulting in extensive flooding, damage to infrastructure, homes being swept away and extensive power outages across the province.
Previously, Western Cape MEC for Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, Anton Bredell said no final cost of damage has been estimated yet as the Western Cape Government (WCG) is currently in the first round of damage estimates.
Some areas in the province remain too waterlogged for assessments to be conducted.
The City of Cape Town said in just 10 days, between July 9 and July 19, its electricity teams attended to almost 19,000 primarily storm-related faults.
robin.francke@iol.co.za
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