South Africa’s Covid-19 national state of disaster has been extended to 18 August, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma has announced.
Announcing this in the Government Gazette, Dlamini-Zuma said “the extension takes into account the need to continue augmenting the existing contingency measures undertaken by organs of state to mitigate and address the impact of severe weather phenomena on affected communities and infrastructure.”
In addition, the government was working with various social partners to transition affected communities from humanitarian emergency to stabilisation and recovery, the minister said.
The extension of the national state of disaster “also owes its existence to the impact of a severe weather event which was originally declared on 18 April 2022,” she added.
This was the period when some 85,280 people were affected by floods which wreaked havoc in KwaZulu-Natal province, leaving thousands of people in five districts surrounding the Indian Ocean port city of Durban homeless – with 461 fatalities.
Over 4,000 houses were damaged by the inclement weather, displacing thousands of people, with provinces of the Eastern Cape, North West and Free State also severely affected.
NM/jn/APA