Eastern Cape rocked by killer floods as death toll rises

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

The Eastern Cape is counting the cost of devastating floods that have led to the deaths of at least 10 people and the collapse of a section of the N-2 between Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth.

Police disaster management spokesperson, captain John Fobian, says the collapsed section of the N-2 near Pumba Game Reserve could take more than three months to repair.

The R-72 coastal road between East London and Port Elizabeth is badly damaged but is passable.
No trucks are allowed to use this road at the moment.

Dozens of people had to be evacuated from flooded informal settlements in Nelson Mandela Bay while the NSRI came to the rescue of a church group stranded on the Swartkops River.

NSRI volunteers in Nelson Mandela Bay helped evacuate 76 people and a dog upstream of the Swartkops River after they were cut off from the mainland by rising waters on the river.

NSRI spokesperson, Craig Lambinon, says they were contacted by Nelson Mandela Bay disaster management to assist with the evacuation of the Christian group who were holding a weekend fellowship.

He says after a safety briefing the group commenced crossing the river one by one.

Lambinon says the elderly were also assisted to cross the river safely and on to waiting busses.

He says no one was injured.

At St Francis Bay where the bridge over the Sand River collapsed again, NSRI volunteers were using their rescue craft to ferry stranded people across the Kromme River.

NSRI station commander, Mark May, said they helped more than 200 people cross the river by late Sunday afternoon.