Parts of the Garden Route District Municipality have been battered by severe weather conditions.

• Government has officially declared the severe weather battering large parts of the country as a national disaster.
• Extreme weather has wreaked havoc in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, North West, Free State, and Mpumalanga.
• The declaration was issued by the Department of Cooperative Governance on Saturday night.

After days of deadly flooding, collapsing infrastructure and widespread devastation across several provinces, the SA government has officially declared the country’s severe weather a national disaster as authorities scramble to contain the escalating humanitarian emergency.

Torrential rainfall, violent storms, damaging winds and snowfall have battered large parts of the country since Monday, leaving communities submerged, roads destroyed, homes damaged, and critical services disrupted across the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, Free State, North West and Mpumalanga.

The declaration was issued by the Department of Cooperative Governance, in terms of the Disaster Management Act, on Saturday night.

The head of the National Disaster Management Centre, Bongani Elias Sithole, said in a statement that the scale and severity of the disaster had forced authorities to escalate the response to a national level.

He said the decision followed consultations with various organs of state and provincial disaster management centres after assessing the “magnitude and severity” of the weather system that struck the country from 4 May.

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The severe weather brought heavy rainfall, flooding, thunderstorms, damaging surface winds and snowfall, resulting in loss of life, widespread damage to homes, infrastructure and the environment, while also disrupting critical basic services in several regions.

“I hereby give notice that I regard this occurrence as a disaster and, in terms of Section 23(1)(b) of the Disaster Management Act, classify the disaster as a national disaster,” Sithole said.

The classification now places the primary responsibility for coordinating and managing the disaster response on the government.

All three spheres of government would now be expected to strengthen disaster management support structures and accelerate emergency contingency measures to deal with the escalating crisis.

Sithole called on all organs of state to intensify coordinated disaster interventions and ensure measures are in place to allow the national executive to effectively manage the disaster and its aftermath.

The declaration further recommends that national, provincial and municipal governments urgently implement a “multisectoral prevention, mitigation, relief and rehabilitation plan” to address the devastating effects of the severe weather conditions.

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Authorities have also been instructed to submit ongoing progress reports to the National Disaster Management Centre to enable the government to monitor disaster response initiatives implemented by state departments, municipalities, non-governmental organisations, and affected communities.

The move comes as disaster management teams across several provinces continue mop-up and rescue operations following days of flooding, infrastructure collapse, road closures and power outages.

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In the Western Cape, flood-ravaged parts of the Garden Route remain under pressure, with several communities still inaccessible after rivers burst their banks and roads were washed away.

Emergency services, humanitarian organisations and municipal disaster teams have been working around the clock to assist stranded residents, restore infrastructure and assess the full extent of the damage.