CAPE TOWN, May 10 (Xinhua) -- The South African government has officially classified the devastating severe weather affecting multiple provinces across the country as a national disaster.
In a statement issued on Saturday night, the Department of Cooperative Governance (DCoG) said that since May 4, heavy rainfall, flooding, thunderstorms, damaging winds and snowfall have caused deaths, infrastructure damage and disruptions to essential services in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, North West, Free State and Mpumalanga provinces.
After consultations with various state organs and provincial disaster management authorities, and after assessing the magnitude and severity of the severe weather, head of the National Disaster Management Center under DCoG Elias Sithole said, "I hereby give notice that I regard this occurrence as a disaster and ... classify the disaster as a national disaster."
According to him, the classification now places the primary responsibility for coordinating and managing the disaster on the national government.
Sithole called on the government to further strengthen support for disaster management structures to implement their contingency arrangements and ensure that measures are put in place to enable the national executive to effectively deal with the effects of the disaster.
He further recommended that national, provincial and municipal governments implement a "multisectoral prevention, mitigation, relief and rehabilitation plan" to address the effects of the disaster, while submitting progress reports to enable the government to monitor response initiatives implemented by state departments, municipalities, non-governmental organizations and affected communities.
The move came as disaster management teams across several provinces continued rescue and clean-up operations following days of flooding, infrastructure collapse, road closures and power outages. Authorities did not immediately provide updated casualty figures.
In Western Cape province, the Garden Route District Municipality said in a statement on Sunday morning that several areas remained isolated while some communities were still without electricity.
"At this stage, many people remain cut off in affected areas," it said. "Humanitarian relief teams continue to distribute food parcels and blankets to affected communities."
Meanwhile, the South African Weather Service warned that disruptive rainfall and damaging winds were expected to persist in parts of Western Cape until Tuesday. ■