Seven provinces, with Mpumalanga being one, are experiencing uncontrolled rainfall resulting in flooding.
Major dams are reported to be filling up quickly and are triggering flood control and management to safeguard the infrastructure and water flow.
The @SAWeatherServic continues to monitor all weather systems and updates to forecasts and severe warnings are made regularly through the existing channels.
Weather warnings are available at 🔗https://t.co/c5MCD9ovlr#Floods pic.twitter.com/lDlurkzaky
— South African Government (@GovernmentZA) February 23, 2023
During this process, sluice gates are operated to allow acceptable volumes of water out of the dam into the rivers.
Currently, Witbank Dam is having high inflows averaging 98% full capacity and is managed by opening sluice gates to maintain the dam level.
Communities living along river banks, within flood lines, low-lying bridges, and buried infrastructure are prime targets.
Formal and informal settlements where roads are not surfaced experience soil erosion exposing some other municipal infrastructure.
Communities and motorists using roads along the river banks will be informed when flood control and management are activated, however, the persistent rainfall does affect the effective provisioning of municipal services and is exacerbated by load shedding.
Surfaced roads are slippery when wet, increasing the accident rate, and developing potholes and silt-filled roads.
Roads tend to be inaccessible and motorists are urged to be cautious, careful, and tolerant.
Caution is to be exercised at all times.
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