Cars were trapped in layers of snow on the N3 highway between KZN and Gauteng last weekend. At least two people died in the icy conditions. Supplied
THE government has come in for an avalanche of criticism following last weekend’s disastrous response to Arctic weather conditions in KwaZulu-Natal which left two people dead and compelled a snowbound Johannesburg couple to ask the courts for help.
This after disaster management was forewarned in July about the strong possibility of last weekend’s violent weather.
While disaster management services are currently on standby for more inclement weather from tonight the South African Weather Service says the conditions won't reach the crisis levels seen just days ago.
Meteorologist Celeste Fourie said they expected scattered showers and thunderstorms this afternoon with a bit more bite in the air tomorrow.
“For the Midlands and northern interior of KZN, we are expecting some of those thunderstorms to become severe. The most impact that we’re expecting with them is damaging winds, excessive lightning and heavy downpours. A light sprinkling of snow can be expected on the southern Drakensberg and Underberg, but it is not expected to fall on the towns or to block the highway as it did last week,” she said.
Last week almost two thousand cars and thousands of commuters were stuck in the snow on the N3 highway between Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
Many kept their engines running for warmth overnight to prevent hypothermia from setting in.
Worried relatives feared the worst as cellphones died, stranded travellers ran out of food and the sick had no access to vital medication.
Johannesburg businessman Mohamed Goolam and his wife, Ayesha Omar, a pharmacist and their two children aged 6 and 9 were travelling from KZN to Johannesburg after attending a wedding when they were trapped between Estcourt and Harrismith.
With one person already dead and overnight temperatures on the road expected to plummet to minus 4°C, they phoned their lawyer in Johannesburg with an instruction to file an urgent court interdict.
The couple wanted to compel President Cyril Ramaphosa, the relevant government departments and the SANDF to “take all reasonable steps and emergency measures to bring relief to the affected motorists, especially providing food, water and blankets”. In the court papers, they said all those parties had an “obligation to extract the affected motorists and travellers from the road.”
The interdict said the family had last eaten about 26 hours ago, were still trapped in their car and did not have sufficient warm clothing to protect them from the bitter cold.
“The applicants and their children are forced to relieve themselves in the piling snow. They are cold, hungry and desperate,” the affidavit said.
The document further stated that all affected motorists had the right “not to be subjected to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment” and the right to health care, food, water and security.
Their lawyer, Yasmin Omar, told the Sunday Tribune that the urgent application was heard at 9.30pm last Saturday but the court was “quite unsympathetic”.
“We told the judge it is literally a matter of life and death, somebody’s died already,” said Omar. She said the judge asked them to follow “service”, which meant that they had to serve papers on all the parties concerned but it was late at night and no one would have been there to receive them.
They were told to return to court the next morning, and by then a second person had died. “Eventually the matter was struck off the roll,” said Omar.
Ixopo resident Busisiwe Zulu, 72, was horrified that another cold snap was expected as residents were just starting to recover from the previous weekend.
“What have we done on God’s Earth?” said Zulu. “When I went to bed on Friday it was raining, and it was a very cold rain but it did not seem like something to worry about. I was shocked when I woke up the following morning to see my yard and the entire neighbourhood was covered in snow,” she added.
Zulu and other locals who rely on firewood had to find alternatives as most of it was wet.
With the power supply also disrupted, her saving grace was the gas cylinder which she used for cooking and keeping warm.
Zulu, who was born in Ixopo, described the cold weather as among the worst she had experienced in years.
Professor Kaitano Dube, a climate change expert from the Vaal University of Technology, said he had warned in July of violent weather ahead of the rainy season. He said the heavy snowfall was not surprising but it simply underlined the reality of climate change.
“What was surprising for me was the response from disaster management. It appeared as if there had been no warning at all, yet the weather service had given the warning and elevated it to another level.”
Dube cited the ocean as supercharging the atmosphere, resulting in violent weather systems, and called for a thorough review of the country’s disaster management system.
He said this was crucial even though authorities would now be on a greater level of alert as more bad weather was expected.
“It does not make sense to have an efficient weather service that is able to detect possible dangers ahead of time, only to find that those who are given the data are not responding with the desired sense of urgency.
“Disaster management units should have people that will be able to read and interpret data and formulate an appropriate response,” he stressed. Dube noted that with the rainy season now upon us, there was little time to waste.
Thulasizwe Buthelezi, the KZN MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), said no disruptions were anticipated on any of the province’s major routes but he warned residents to exercise extreme caution.
“The heavy rains have the potential to cause localised flooding, and disaster management teams will continue to monitor areas prone to weather-related incidents,” he said.