(Fwd) more activists react to Durban's Rain Bomb - including street protesters, climate critics, labour
Patrick Bond
(As of yesterday afternoon, the KwaZulu-Natal death toll had reached 395, of whom 350 were in Durban.
It appears that there are three processes underway in oppositional civil society, which ideally would overlap and intersect, but don't always: emergency relief and solidaristic mutual aid; condemnation of the state for service delivery failure; and condemnation of the state for lack of attention to climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience. Examples:
- 1) emergency solidaristic relief: especially the Islamic charity Gift of the Givers and Abahlali baseMjondolo
- 2) service delivery failure critique: street
protesters, AbM, South Durban Community Environmental
Alliance, National Union of Metalworkers of SA, General
Industries Workers Union of SA
- 3) climate failure critique and "Just
Transition!" demands: SDCEA, Climate Justice
Charter Movement, Oceans Not Oil, Extinction Rebellion
Gauteng, GIWUSA
And many more. In this article we try to tackle all three, following some contextual analysis: https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/15/durbans-latest-rain-bomb-kills-more-than-300-and-unveils-state-climate-sloth/
What is to be done, beyond the funding appeals, to change power relations so this sort of disaster never happens again?
Short of voting out the
rascals in power and socialising the means of both
production and combustion so as to compel a Just Transition,
the main local punishment to the state for its malevolence
right now appears to be street protest and delegitimation.
Many ordinary people are furious about the lack of services
available, especially for those whose families have suffered
deaths, injuries and destruction of their houses. And
there's a commentariat properly placing blame - as does
Zapiro in the "Danger!" sign - on Durban's state failure.
But street fury is a feature of the Durban Rain Bomb that activists may have picked up on (and that armchair academics like me are not so good at interpreting). Municipal state hatred comes through clearly in the media reports below. For example, a man interviewed while blocking a main road, the M19 - also seen in the pic below:
Protester: It’s quite sad that the president was in Ntuzuma... I think there’s a huge damage that has been done here but the president couldn’t attend to our damage that we have here.
eNCA: This has been an ongoing fight for you. I’ve come here before when there’ve been protests as well. Has government ever offered residents here an opportunity to live anywhere else?
Protester: No it never happened, because what they told us in 2019 it was also a very sad story, when officials at that time - a deputy mayor - at that stage she came here and said we have ourselves, we have to identify the land. How we can identify the land who owns the land? We don’t have those facilities to do that. Which means they’re just pushing us away. But what I can say? They have to relocate us here because, you can see, this is a a disaster area, yeah. This place will be washed away in a few years to come... This place is totally finished. They have to relocate us if it’s possible.
Speaking
of street heat, we can be thankful that the alienation and
economic desperation that pulses through South Africa wasn't
directed at immigrants last Sunday, as we had all feared
given that Operation Dudula launched in Durban. But it
failed miserably. On the other hand, the same day, Zandile
Gumede came back to power as ANC leader of the city, which
heralds the durability of talk-left walk-right Zupta
politics in KZN.
And speaking of these political misleaders, I wonder if those doing climate advocacy have a way to avoid the "Climate change dunnit! - not us!" spindoctoring of President Ramaphosa, Mayor Kaunda and the other ANC leaders aiming to deflect attention from malgovernance.
In this context, an uptick of strong structural protest is needed too, against the state’s leaders who arguable committed “culpable homicide” as Vishwas Satgar and Charles Simane eloquently explain, and as Al Jazeera also picked up on below.
Also, a petit-bourgeois boycott of Durban municipal service delivery failure – and with it, the city elites’ image – is occurring informally, because a great many holidaymakers who go to Durban every Easter as chilly weather sets in here in Joburg, are staying away.
The main international-solidarity punishment for the SA state that can be applied from below, especially in the UK, U.S., Germany and France, is retraction of financial support for the establishment's "Just Energy Transition" which is in fact a transition to 44% methane-coal-to-gas instead of 100% renewables, as Climate Justice Charter Movement has complained of here: https://www.change.org/p/unfccc-and-ippcc-ch-make-ending-coal-gas-and-oil-investment-a-condition-for-financial-support-to-south-africa-cop27-climatechange-climatereport-frenchembassyza-germanembassysa-usembassysa-ukinsouthafrica-climateza-presidencyza-cyrilramaphosa
The SA green-left scene hasn't yet had a full airing of the
Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism climate tax on SA
exports, which the EU, UK, U.S. and other
imperialist-protectionist regimes will impose, perhaps to
the benefit of these activists trying to urgently decarb
South Africa - but mishandling Durban's climate-catastrophe
adaptation won't look good for Pretoria as those climate
sanctions negotiations unfold.
Regardless of where your solidarity goes, there are profound
lessons to be learned from Durban this week.)
***
April 15,
2022
Durban’s Latest Rain Bomb Kills More Than 300
and Unveils State Climate Sloth
by Patrick Bond and Mary Galvin
Floods again ravaged South Africa’s third-largest city, Durban, killing at least 300 residents on Monday, forcing thousands more to evacuate their homes, and preventing movement of people and emergency goods due to collapsed roads and bridges. In many areas, broken water reticulation pipes and the electricity system’s collapse have left taps dry and power out for days. (Pictures are here.)
The toll in lost human life exceeds Durban’s prior record of 64 deaths from the “Rain Bomb” of April 2019, when 168 millimeters fell in 24 hours, doing at least $75 million in damage. In October 2017, 108 mm fell in one day, killing 11.
Going back further, in 2011 Durban hosted the annual United Nations COP17 climate summit, generally considered a global policy failure (though not according to U.S. State Department negotiator Todd Stern who celebrated to Hillary Clinton what he termed a “significant success for the United States”). Still, city officials appeared numb to the imminent threat, not bothering to make basic infrastructure repairs after 2017 even in high-profile sites like the violence-afflicted Glebelands migrant labor hostel whose roof was not repaired two years later.
On Monday, the skies dumped 351 mm. Once again, it was obvious that Durban municipality (officially known as eThekwini), KwaZulu-Natal province and the national state government all lack a genuine commitment to climate-crisis adaptation, including sufficiently robust civil engineering and simple maintenance of already-inadequate stormwater drainage systems. State housing provision and construction standards for thousands of the city’s residential structures were revealed as inadequate. Hardest hit were Durban’s poor communities: of the city’s 550 informal shack settlements, at least 164 are located in floodplains.
Greenwashed Durban
The municipality is often accused of slacking on climate protection, in spite of backslapping rhetoric to the contrary – e.g., in 2020, claiming “to be at the cutting edge of climate change action, assisted by its progressive leadership and engagement within… the C40 Leadership Group” (a network promoted by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg). There is far too much praise by out-of-touch scholars, although occasionally, journalists separate fact from C40 fiction.
The 2019 Durban Climate Action Plan lacks urgency, although at least it is premised on what climate scientists were predicting a decade before: dry areas will be much prone to drought, and wet coastal and eastern areas of South Africa much rainier, with greater intensity of extreme weather events.
But no can deny Durban’s notorious green-washing, which even entailed a 2014 WWF award nomination for which city bureaucrats hired a professional internet trickster who hijacked twitter accounts, partly to promote a failed World Bank carbon-trading scheme.
And in 2018, notwithstanding media reports of then-Mayor Zandile Gumede’s impending prosecution on multiple corruption and solid-waste procurement-scam charges, the San Francisco Global Climate Action Summit’s “One Planet City Challenge” recognised Durban as “a leader in climate action” because it “continues to combine ambitious targets and focused action with community development initiatives.” Gumede was from 2016 until her mid-2019 arrest and forced resignation, the C40 urban climate network’s Vice Chair, again revealing the shallow incompetence of global climate elites.
Talk generous and green, walk stingy and dirty
In the same spirit, immediately after Durban’s 2019 Rain Bomb, President Cyril Ramaphosa visited – alongside Gumede – to survey the damage, conceding that “the force of nature is so huge and this is partly what climate change is about that it just hits when we least expect it.”
As for emergency relief and paying for what termed by the United Nations “Loss & Damage” costs, he promised: “I immediately contacted our Treasury and said, do we have money to assist our people? And they said ‘President, we have the money.’ So money will be mobilised to assist our people. These are emergency situations that we budget for, so resources will be mobilised in the biggest way so that our people who are currently in need are assisted.”
Yet only $6.25 million was then provided by Treasury to meet emergency housing needs: just 14% of thecity’s own estimate of the April storm’s $46 million in residential damage, itself considered low given the scale of the destruction and need for proper reconstruction.
On Wednesday Ramaphosa returned to Durban to visit flood victims, and pledged, “This disaster is part of climate change. It is telling us that climate change is serious, it is here. We no longer can postpone what we need to do, and the measures we need to take to deal with climate change.”
Notwithstanding soothing words, his hypocrisy was glaring, for prior to 2016, when he sold his private conglomerate Shanduka, Ramaphosa was so desperate to dig for coal that he failed to obtain required water licenses (apparently due to regulatory corruption), displaced local residents and also teamed up with the notorious Swiss-based corporation Glencore at a time the latter was facing international lawsuits on dozens of ethics grounds. (The point was not lost on locals who remember its founder Marc Rich’s role in apartheid-era sanctions-busting.) A year ago, even some former Ramaphosa labor-based allies rounded on him, given plausible concerns he favoured Glencore’s coal division at consumers’ expense during a 2014-15 electricity pricing battle when Ramaphosa was already serving as South Africa’s deputy president.
Until South Africa was threatened with trade-related climate sanctions last year, Ramaphosa proved resistant to activist demands that the state curtail its destructive love affair with fossil fuels, electricity-intensive deep mining, refining and smelting. For example, last July, in order to fight a Mozambican insurgency in the gas-rich Cabo Delgado province, Ramaphosa deployed more than 1000 army troops and much-needed helicopters (leaving only one in Durban for emergency rescues this week). They are mainly defending the interests of Western and Chinese oil companies drilling at the world’s fourth-largest methane field. The insurgents continue to operate from the shadows although Total has announced a resumption of its gas drilling and processing.
Why the sudden turn to meth-addict energy? In 2020 Ramaphosa’s public enterprise minister – who a decade earlier as finance minister had arranged for the World Bank’s largest-ever loan, to pay for the world’s largest coal-fired plants then under construction – hired a former executive of Sasol known as “Mr Coal” to run Eskom, the electricity parastatal. There, in mid-2021, he announced 44% of his “Just Energy Transition” funds – including $8.5 billion in supposed decarbonization finance from last November’s Glasgow COP26 – would convert coal-fired power plants into methane gas plants (and new ones would be built). It is now widely understood that methane is far more potent than CO2, and indeed is now measured as eighty times worse over the course of a century.
The Ramaphosa government’s other ongoing contributions to the climate crisis are prolific. The first presidential infrastructure priority mega-project within the National Development Plan (whose 2012 deputy chair was Ramaphosa) is to export 18 billion tons of coal from a site in his parents’ home province, Limpopo; if associated rail and power infrastructure is ever completed, it will cost at least $100 billion. His Transnet team is hell-bent on privatizing rail lines so as to increase coal exports – last year, just 59 million tons thanks to thieves and vandals – back to 75 million a year.
Also in Limpopo, his government promotes the $17 billion Chinese-driven Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone MMSEZ (located next to his traditional home village), one proudly announced in 2018 after he and Xi Jinping co-chaired the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation: “The following projects within the MMSEZ have been prioritized for implementation: a 4600MW coal-fired plant, a cement plant and other metallurgical projects.” Even without the originally-planned coal generator, which climate activists appear to have defeated last month, “other metallurgical projects” will emit 34 megatons of CO2 annually, according to officials. Hence by 2030, if the project proceeds, they will comprise 8% of the 420 megaton national pollution target.
Meanwhile without presidential objection, Ramaphosa’s energy minister recklessly pushes methane gas and coal, his environment minister rejects court orders to cut pollution at the two largest greenhouse gas emitters (Eskom and Sasol), and his finance minister delays (by more years) ratcheting up what is an absurdly low carbon tax, one currently just $0.42/ton due to exemptions, compared to most recent estimates of a $3000/ton cost of carbon.
The cost of not transitioning justly
The latter point is vital, because by applying a rudimentary “polluter pays” principle as a means of raising funds – but in a progressive not regressive way (as did French and Ecuadorean governments in 2018-19, generating massive social protests) – funds could be raised for not only Loss & Damage reparations, but also for necessary climate-proofing investments in poor communities.
Thanks to dramatically-increased unemployment in these areas due to Covid-19, there are pent-up supplies of construction laborers and general workers who can repair and strengthen drainage systems, rebuild damaged roads, construct sturdier houses and safer bridges, restore wetlands and rehabilitate riverine systems to act as a sponge. Solar and wind energy plus public transit improvements also need generous subsidies. By one account, a “million climate jobs“ could be provided here, were there the political will.
But government broke many promises to “build back better” after the Covid-19 economic lockdown. Even though in October 2020, Ramaphosa committed the state to hiring 800 000 new workers, Treasury’s unprecedented budget cuts kicked in soon thereafter. That dried up the funding needed not only to repair damaged infrastructure, but to implement a genuine “Just Transition”: support for workers dislocated by decarbonization, whether in the coal fields or South Durban’s refinery complex (where both Engen and Sapref recently reached the end of their lifespans).
Had more state funds been available for Durban’s 2019 recovery – and ring-fenced so as not to fall victim to Gumede’s alleged graft tendencies – the necessary climate adaptation work could have taken place. Yet as local journalist Des Erasmus remarked this week, an underlying case of malgovernance cannot be disguised: “Local and provincial government spoke of climate change until they were reminded that notwithstanding climate change, poor infrastructure, drainage and sewer maintenance, poorly-built houses, and allowing residents to build homes on river banks had also significantly contributed to the fallout.”
What sort of climate-resilient investments are needed? A first vital step is improving early warning systems and flood preparedness, since the SA Weather Service admitted that it vastly underestimated the storm’s power. Other labor-intensive construction is needed for small dams and seawalls; stronger roads and bridge reinforcements; better-quality pipes and water treatment; back-up generators for pumping stations; firebreaks; and much more effective stormwater drainage, including maintenance.
Most obviously, improvements in housing stability are required across the working-class areas of the city, as well as for all structures built on vulnerable hills and near oceans and rivers. And much more investment is needed in green infrastructure, including better maintenance of forests, floodplains and wetlands.
Elusive red-green politics
To get there, the balance of forces will need deep, urgent change. How that happens is still unclear, given that although Ramaphosa is fast losing power internally within his badly-divided ANC party – which scored only 42% in the 2021 election (25% lower than it did 20 years ago) and lost most major cities to centre-right opposition parties – a new danger has arisen: far-right, xenophobic organizing in working-class communities targeting African and Asian immigrants (reminiscent of Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro, Duterte, Orban, etc).
At the same time, there are major splits in the progressive community: two different climate justice coalitions, a terrible cleavage in the left labor movement, ongoing disconnections between community activists fighting similar battels but without organizational coherence, and other well-known woes the independent left faces everywhere.
Desperation to change that power balance has led some brave climate activists to call for international sanctions against Ramaphosa’s government, reflecting their valid sense that this kind of punishment is what motivates elites, as demonstrated in 1985 when anti-apartheid sanctions bit hard. In addition, a wedge may well be driven by the European Union’s (and other Western) Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism climate tariffs sufficiently deep as to break the bloc of high-carbon emitters away from the rest of the economy. Responding directly to the Durban Rain Bomb, that movement and Durban-based Oceans Not Oil also opened a case of culpable homicide against top government officials, including Ramaphosa.
Another place to look for optimism is ordinary Durban residents, who are striving to provide mutual aid (especially the respected emergency relief group Gift of the Givers) and toughen their already-vibrant critiques of local, provincial and national governments. Over the past half-century, the city’s activists have often been at the epicenter of such struggles: in 1973 with port worker organizing that helped seed a national labor movement; in mid-1980s community-based anti-apartheid resistance; in the late-1990s “We are the Poors” movement that reignited urban social movements; in the 2005 rise from the shacklands of the impressive group Abahlali baseMjondolo (now raising funds to support flood victims); and in environmental justice advocacy by the NGO groundWork and especially the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance.
Working-class residents battered by the rains and flooding, and furious with the lack of state support in several parts of the city, are already out protesting against municipal state failure, mainly by blocking key arterial roads. Desperate people also broke into shops and shipping containers in search of food, water and anything of value. But while social psychology is stressed, it did degenerate as far as feared: on the prior Sunday, April 10, a downtown march by the xenophobic movement (called Operation Dudula, meaning “to drive back”) was a failure, attracting only a few dozen local participants. Nevertheless, as another sign of the times, on the same day, former mayor Zandile Gumede was voted by ANC members as head of the ruling party’s Durban branch, which in recent years was the single largest in the country, although her ongoing prosecution on corruption may prevent her from serving. All these political processes in Durban confirm once again how dynamics remain fluid and difficult to predict.
They may help the broader society determine, once again, how to fight oppression with an organizational response, one that transcends handwringing, meagre reforms and charity, no matter that emergency relief is needed for hundreds of thousands of people right now. The one certainty is that the latest Durban Rain Bomb heralds far more profound climate injustices to come.
Patrick Bond and Mary Galvin teach at University of Johannesburg, in sociology and development studies, respectively.
***
Citizen
Police fire stun grenades at protesters affected by KZN floods
The protesters blocked a main road after being told to leave a school they were sheltering in
Police had to fire stun grenades and tear gas to disperse protesters blocking the M19 highway in Durban on Thursday.
The protesters were calling for more aid to be sent to them in the aftermath of the devastating floods across KwaZulu-Natal (KZN).
Some of the protesters were carrying small axes and pangas.
The protesters had blocked the highway by dragging a roadside barrier across the tarmac.
According to TimesLIVE, the community that staged the protest were unhappy that they were asked to leave a school they were taking shelter in after the floods had destroyed their homes at the Quarry Road informal settlement.
The protesters allege that the principal of the school asked them to leave after being told b a local councillor to do so.
Service delivery after KZN floods
KZN Premier Sihle Zikalala on Thursday said the floods has disrupted service delivery, including water supply and electricity, in many parts of the province.
“We are doing everything in our power to return everything to normal [but] some of this will take a bit of time caused by a force of nature that we could not control,” Zikalala said.
The premier added that 341 deaths have been recorded so far from the floods.
He added that 55 people were injured while more than 248 schools have been damaged.
Zikalala said teams are working on fixing damaged roads in an attempt to make areas around KZN accessible.
“Bayhead Road, which is completely closed as it has collapse, is a strategic route for movement of cargo [and] its closure will have a severe impact on economic activities of the province and the country.
“Trucks are unable to access container terminals. M7 is also experiencing some failures so there is currently mop-up work to clear that particular area,” he said.
***
The Independent
South African police disperse crowd demanding more aid after deadly floods
Samuel Webb
Fri, April 15, 2022
Police in South Africa fired stun grenades and teargas at protesters calling for more aid after devastating floods tore through Durban.
Residents blocked a road with steel barriers after claiming that the eThekwini municipality had evicted them from a school they had been using for temporary housing after the floods, according to a report on South Africa’s TimesLive website.
Protesters wielding panga (machetes) chanted songs mocking the police in a bid to have officials address their concerns, the website reported.
Heavy rains and flooding have claimed the lives of at least 306 people in South Africa’s eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, which includes the city of Durban.
The death toll is expected to rise given that scores of people, including whole families, are missing, local officials have said.
On Thursday, the Queen expressed her sympathy for the people of South Africa, saying: “I am deeply saddened to hear of the tragic loss of life and destruction caused by the recent floods in KwaZulu-Natal province.
“My thoughts are with all those who have lost their lives, their loved ones, homes and businesses. The United Kingdom stands in solidarity with South Africa as you recover from these terrible events.”
The persistent rains have wreaked havoc in the province, destroying homes, collapsing buildings and washing away major roads.
The damage to Durban and the surrounding eThekwini metropolitan area is estimated at $52m (£40m), eThekwini’s mayor Mxolisi Kaunda said.
At least 120 schools have been flooded, causing damage estimated at more than $26m (£20m) and forcing officials to temporarily close all schools in the province.
At least 18 students and one teacher from various schools have died in the floods, education minister Angie Motshekga said.
“This is a catastrophe and the damage is unprecedented. What is even more worrying is that more rain is expected in the same areas that are already affected,” Ms Motshekga said in a statement.
***
https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/live-rain-flooding-hit-kwazulu-natal-20220412
KZN Floods: eThekwini mayor says protests are delaying flood recovery
eThekwini Municipality Mayor, Mxolisi Kaunda, has asked for patience from protesting communities as the City works to restore services.
Protester: It’s quite sad that the president was in Ntuzuma... I think there’s a huge damage that has been done here but the president couldn’t attend to our damage that we have here.
eNCA: This has been an ongoing fight for you. I’ve come here before when there’ve been protests as well. Has government ever offered residents here an opportunity to live anywhere else?
Protester: No it never happened, because what they told us in 2019 it was also a very sad story, when officials at that time - a deputy mayor - at that stage she came here and said we have ourselves, we have to identify the land. How we can identify the land who owns the land? We don’t have those facilities to do that. Which means they’re just pushing us away. But what I can say? They have to relocate us here because, you can see, this is a a disaster area, yeah. This place will be washed away in a few years to come... This place is totally finished. They have to relocate us if it’s possible.
***
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXkIWJvcsi0
Protest in Durban after flooding cuts water, power
Apr 14, 2022
34.3K subscribers
Residents of Bhambayi township in South Africa’s eastern city of Durban protests against the lack of public services after floods cut water and electricity. Demonstrators blocked the street with rubble and burning barricades to demand that city authorities repair damaged infrastructure that left them without running water or power for days, they say.
***
Protesters block Durban’s M19 and ‘stone cars’ after being removed from temporary shelter
14 April 2022 - 13:38 By TIMESLIVE
About 100 people from informal settlements around the M19 near Reservoir Hills took to the streets, burning tyres and allegedly stoning cars in protest at being removed from a temporary shelter after their homes were destroyed in the floods.
Image: Supplied
About 100 people from informal settlements around the M19 near Reservoir Hills, Durban, took to the streets, burning tyres and allegedly stoning cars in protest against being removed from a temporary shelter after their homes were destroyed in the floods.
Durban metro police’s senior superintendent Parbhoo Sewpersad said between 80 to 100 protesters were unhappy about being moved from a school on Thursday and “started burning the roadway” and stoning passing motorists.
“They were taken to the school from the informal settlement which borders the river which had burst its banks as a temporary measure because of the danger. However, they had to be moved from the school on Thursday and were due to be housed in a nearby community hall. This made them angry,” he said.
Sewpersad said they had called the local councillor to intervene and negotiate with the disgruntled residents.
TimesLIVE
***
South Africa floods: Protests over disruptions in electricity and water supply
Community members of the Quarry road informal settlement block the road during a protest for water and electricity services, north of Durban -
Copyright © africanews
RAJESH JANTILAL/AFP or licensors
with AFP
Last updated: 11 hours ago
Around 100 residents of Bhambayi township in South Africa’s eastern city of Durban took to the streets to protest against being removed from a temporary shelter after their homes were destroyed in floods.
Demonstrators blocked the street with rubble and burning barricades to demand city authorities repair damaged infrastructure that left them without running water or power for days.
The Residents of the informal settlements around the M19 near Reservoir Hills had been moved from school acting as a temporary shelter and were due to be housed in a nearby community hall.
Durban metro police’s senior superintendent Parbhoo Sewpersad said the local councillor has been called on to intervene and negotiate with the disgruntled residents.
The anger has spread to communities north of Durban, with protesters in eThekwini calling for the municipality to speed up the restoration of services and provide housing.
In neighbouring township Ntuzuma, angry communities frustrated by the failure of the municipality to quickly restore power and water services closed roads and were ready to picket.
Protesters are demanding that alternate housing be provided after their informal dwellings were destroyed on Ramnath Road in Coniston, KZN, during the downpour on Monday.
Burning tyres are strewn along the southbound lane while debris has been used to block off the opposite lane.
Flooding in the Durban area has taken over 300 lives and has been described as a “catastrophe of enormous proportions,” by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Thousands of people have been made homeless, roads and bridges swept away and at least 248 schools have been damaged.
The government has declared a state of disaster in the region and pledged relief to those affected.
***
Thobeka Ngema
·
· News
Flood victims protest in call for housing, water and electricity restoration
Burning tyres
are strewn along the southbound lane while debris was used
to block off the opposite lane in Canelands when flood
victims protested. | Facebook/Reaction Unit South Africa
Published Apr 13, 2022
Durban - Protests spread in communities north of Durban as communities called for the eThekwini Municipality to speed up the restoration of services and provide housing.
On Tuesday evening, protest action was reported in KwaMashu.
Daily News senior reporter Sihle Mavuso was in KwaMashu and reported that the community staged a protest by closing roads with burning tyres. They wanted the eThekwini Municipality to swiftly restore power following the floods.
He said sections like G, D, M and K were without power and water since 5am on Monday.
There were also reports of protest action leading into KwaMashu from the Newlands side on the M21 Road. It was believed to also be because of the flooding.
Protest action leading into KwaMashu from the Newlands side on the M21 Road, also believed to be due to the flooding. | Facebook
Mavuso also reported that the same situation unfolded in Ntuzuma, a neighbouring township, where angry communities who were frustrated by the failure of the municipality to quickly restore power and water services closed roads and were ready to picket.
In another incident further north, Reaction Unit South Africa (Rusa) spokesperson Prem Balram said flood-affected residents had blocked off the north and southbound lane of the R102 in the vicinity of Canelands, Verulam, north of Durban, on Tuesday afternoon.
“Protesters are demanding that alternate housing be provided after their informal dwellings were destroyed on Ramnath Road in Coniston, KZN, during the downpour yesterday (Monday). Burning tyres are strewn along the southbound lane while debris has been used to block off the opposite lane,” Balram said.
He said Rusa officers, SAPS and metro police were in attendance.
Burning tyres are strewn along the southbound lane while debris was used to block off the opposite lane in Canelands when flood victims protested. | Facebook/Reaction Unit South Africa
According to a Facebook post on the eThekwini Secure Facebook group, there were also reports of protest action in Bellair Road.
About 30 people were putting mattresses across the road.
There were fears that vehicles could be attacked and motorists were advised not to use the road.
Metro police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Parboo Sewpersad said the metro police public order policing unit responded to public protests.
“They were complaining about housing. They had no housing after the flash floods, they wanted housing and the municipality accommodated them in halls,” Sewpersad said.
“They also complained about electricity and also complained about water.”
Daily News
***
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61105463
Durban flood survivors: South Africans homeless, hurt and heartbroken
By Shingai Nyoka
BBC News, Durban
...
President Cyril Ramaphosa, who visited affected areas on Wednesday, says climate change is to blame, but some communities disagree. They say poor drainage and building standards have increased the scale of the disaster.
Durban Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda denied that inadequate drainage was to blame, saying the scale of the flood was unexpected.
Informal settlements like some of those in Ntuzuma are built on a slope with limited foundations and flimsy dwellings.
The scale of the damage to infrastructure has been vast with electricity and water supplies hit, although authorities say some of these services have now been restored.
Rescue missions are being undertaken, with some residents evacuated to places of safety, but large parts of the KwaZulu-Natal province remain submerged including highways and roads, so some communities remain totally cut off.
The coastal city of Durban is where most of the images of cars submerged in water and flattened properties have come from.
Heavy winds caused some containers, like these, to topple over In an informal settlement on the banks of the Umgeni River near Durban, there is despair and frustration.
Police fired stun grenades to disperse one group of protesters.
They said they were living in the informal settlement because the government had taken too long to build them proper houses.
And after their houses collapsed into the river bed when the ground gave way, they say the government has not done enough to support them.
The police say there have been similar protests elsewhere in the region.
***
https://briefly.co.za/south-africa/125516-durban-m19-blocked-protestors-removed-temporary-housing/
Protestors in KwaZulu-Natal have blocked the M19 in Durban after being moved from a temporary shelter.
Image: Darren Stewart & Rajesh Jantilal/Getty Source: Getty Images Durban
Metro Police’s Senior Superintendent Parbhoo Sewpersad said the residents were due to be moved into a community hall, but the move from the school angered them. He added that a councillor tried to negotiate with the protestors, TimesLIVE reported. A video of the protests was shared on social media: According to The South African, the residents were initially moved as a temporary measure because of the danger the banks posed to them.
Social media users react to the protests @Kash786787 said: “Reasons why the situation is the way it is. 1. Over the years residents in that area wanted to stay there as they wanted free water from river despite government efforts to tell them it’s not safe to be there. 2. Certain ANC officials supported these residents to stay there and forced the government to build free electricity for them there.”
***
EXPORTING XENOPHOBIA
Operation Dudula launch march in KZN a damp squib
11 Apr 2022 1
Instead of the ‘mother of all marches’, Operation Dudula’s launch in KwaZulu-Natal was attended by just a few dozen people, many of whom were bused in from Gauteng.
Operation Dudula organisers had promised a “mother of all marches” in Durban in the lead-up to Sunday, 10 April 2022. Instead, the crowd was made up of dozens of people transported in two buses and several taxis from Gauteng to Durban, with only a handful of people from Durban.
Operation Dudula has been causing chaos in the country, especially in Gauteng. It started just a few months after the July 2021 riots, stirring up anti-immigrant rhetoric on social media networks and later moving to physical campaigns and marches.
Its leader, Nhlanhla “Lux” Dlamini, known as Nhlanhla Lux, was arrested in March after he led a march to “root out drug dealers” in Soweto. He appeared before the Roodepoort Magistrates’ Court on charges of housebreaking, theft and malicious damage to property. He was granted R1,500 bail after spending the weekend in custody.
Lux was not at the Durban march. Police – who outnumbered the marchers by more than three to one – watched the proceeding with Nyalas, riot vehicles and other equipment as marchers made their way from the Durban city centre through the Point area and down to the Point Police Station, where they handed over their memorandum.
In Mahatma Gandhi Road, police had their hands full when pandemonium broke out after some people in the surrounding apartment buildings threw stones, bottles and water bottles on to the marchers. The marchers threatened to force their way into the apartments, but they were stopped by police.
‘Fake democracy’
Among the marchers was 43-year-old Durban resident Sbusiso Dlamini, who said he had recently joined Operation Dudula. He said he was attracted by its actions, especially its demand that the government implement immigration policies that it said would see many undocumented foreign nationals leave South Africa.
“Here in Point, drugs are peddled day and night, prostitution and human trafficking is the order of the day, yet nobody is arrested,” he said.
Joan Mbhele, a 67-year-old marcher, said she had travelled by bus from Soweto to support the march. She is an executive member of Put South Africans First, which is in an alliance with Operation Dudula and other like-minded organisations.
She claimed that South Africa’s townships, hospitals and job market were being “swarmed” by undocumented foreign nationals.
“This is fake democracy, which puts the lives and wellbeing of foreign nationals ahead of South Africans. We live in the township, where locals cannot do anything. Every opportunity is grabbed by foreign nationals. Most of them are undocumented and when they commit crime, they run away to other areas and they cannot be traced or detected,” she said.
Closed for the march
Many of the shops and businesses owned by immigrants near the Point area were closed for most of the morning ahead of the march. During the march, scores of Point residents – locals and migrants – stood in the street, watching as military-attired marchers made their way past.
Billal Ahmed, a Pakistani national who manages a chicken restaurant in the area, said they had been warned to close their shops.
“We were told that vigilantes are coming,” he said. “We will open again after the march.”
Clothing shops near the Durban beachfront were also closed. A Senegalese man who runs a small shop said he had also been warned to steer clear of the business. He asked not to be named for fear of being targeted.
“We hear that it is a march by South Africans who are claiming that foreigners are criminals, drug dealers. But here, we don’t sell any drugs. We are making a legitimate living,” he said.
Marchers made their way to the Point police station, singing, dancing and chanting anti-immigrant slogans. They handed over a memorandum with a list of demands that was received by the police and Home Affairs officials.
Andrew Dikobo, a Home Affairs official, accepted the memorandum on behalf of the minister and said he would pass it on.
Brigadier Nelly Ngubane, commissioner of the Point Police Station, denied that officers from her station received bribes from drug traffickers and other criminals to turn a blind eye to acts of criminality in the area.
Zandile Dabula, Operation Dudula’s general secretary, said: “We have many demands … We are calling on the President and the minister of employment and labour to prioritise South Africans for job and economic opportunities as per the Immigration Act and section 8 of the Employment Services Act.”
She said there will be many other Operation Dudula activities in KwaZulu-Natal. “Every [KZN] town and township must have an Operation Dudula branch. We are saying it is important for every township to determine its own agenda and priorities.” DM
***
Extinction Rebellion Gauteng statement
It’s April, 2022. The death count from the rain bomb that hit Durban at the weekend is over 300 and rising.
We are in a climate emergency. Even conservative scientific bodies like the International Panel on Climate Change are sounding the alarm.
The United Nations General Secretary, Antony Gutteres, is calling this a ‘Code Red for humanity.’ For some time now, even Pope Francis has been saying we need to fundamentally change the economic system because it has led us to this point.
This is why last week, 100s of scientists took direct action outside oil companies and the banks that fund them – many were arrested.
These are not radicals. As Guterres points out, the radicals are the oil, gas and coal companies and the politicians that support them. Every day that they continue to pump GHGs into the atmosphere, they are putting the lives of millions on a precipice. And the region we live in is one of the most vulnerable.
It’s not logical to do nothing as social and climate breakdown unfolds all around us.
This Earth Day, Extinction Rebellion Gauteng and our allies will be heading to Standard Bank in Rosebank to protest their support for the biggest oil project in the world – the East African Crude Oil Pipeline.
While KZN suffers the worst climate shock in memory, banks like Standard Bank continue to pursue a fossil fuel driven agenda which sees them supporting the EACOP. Finance for the world’s largest crude oil pipeline must be cut and as civil society, we intend to make Standard Bank answer by gathering at their offices on the 22nd.
We simply cannot afford the social, ecological and climate impacts of this pipeline.
#KeepItInTheGround
#ClimateAction
#StopEACOP
***
PRESS ALERT
15 APRIL 2022
GIWUSA condemns government and carbon polluters for causing the climate crisis that killed hundreds in KZN
Hundreds of people – mostly black and working-class – are dead, and billions of rands damage was done this week, as a result of simple failures of climate adaptation in Durban and surrounding municipalities. As a union with nearly 10% of our members working hard in the country’s third-largest city, we are aggrieved and demand transformative change.
How can this calamity have happened? The Durban municipality is praised for climate change adaptation, and its Climate Action Report is advertised as the first in Africa by any city. South Africa’s national government and electricity company Eskom were seen in such a favourable light at the Glasgow UN Climate Summit in 2021 – a decade after Durban hosted the same event – that R131 billion in “concessional finance” (unspecified) was committed.
But the truth is out for all to see. The city, provincial and national governments have not only been climate slackers but also corrupt in too many areas of service delivery. That means we cannot rely upon our state to carry out simple tasks - such as supporting residents with decent housing, stormwater drainage maintenance and emergency response systems, including access to helicopters which could have saved some of those who otherwise perished.
For more than two decades, municipal leadership in Durban and across KZN have ignored the crucial need to build state capacity in construction and civil engineering, and to hire more public works employees – not as outsourced but as insourced labour – so as to lower unemployment and climate-proof our city.
As Covid-19 hit and jobs were wiped out – more than 100 000 in Durban alone – this is where a Build Back Better strategy was urgently needed. But between the city’s post-apartheid mayors (Obed Mlaba 1996–2011, James Nxumalo 2011–2016, Zandile Gumede 2016–2019, and Mxolisi Kaunda since 2019), there has been minimal consciousness and caring.
The closest we have seen to real delivery was of more than 20 000 RDP houses built during the late 2000s, but on closer inspection it appears that many of these were so poorly constructed that they fell apart under torrential rain pressure this week. Contractors like Shaun Mpisane and Jay Singh had gone unpunished for building most of the skorokoro-type housing, because they were major contributors to ruling-party coffers.
Instead, the city put its money into vanity projects like the R4.3 billion Moses Mabhida Stadium which was barely used for the soccer World Cup in 2010 - or since - and which costs tens of millions of rands in upkeep each year. The stadium across the street used for rugby could easily have been renovated for soccer, by all accounts.
Also in 2010, a network of city, provincial and national elites built an unnecessary new airport in La Mercy, 40km north of the city, costing more than R6 billion. Irrationally, it shifted economic activity and elite housing to the north coast, resegregating Durban by class.
The belief that Durban’s deindustrialising economy would be saved by international sports tourism, no matter how neo-colonial (remember Sepp Blatter), permeated the city’s investment plans. So even more subsidies have flowed to try dressing up Umhlanga Rocks, the Golden Mile beachfront and the Point.
We appreciate working-class access to the promenade and North Beach, because they are the most democratic spaces in the country, used by residents from all walks of life, including our members. But somewhere along the way, the municipal politicians, city bureaucrats and leading businesses lost the plot.
With Transnet, they entertained fantasies of spending R250 billion on the South Durban airport-to-port conversion, a non-starter opposed by local community activists. The petro-chemical industry was never modernised, as proven when the two oil refineries – Engen and Shell/BP (Sapref) – closing over the last 15 months because their owners didn’t want to repair or upgrade them to 21st century standards. We join local activists in demanding a “detox” of that area and urgent conversion of the higher elevations at the old airport site into affordable housing and labour-intensive economic activity.
But it is that type of ANC money-grubbing mentality that we see as causing the loss of life and storm damage. We agree with many in the labour movement and communities that the primary strategy must be to replace the ANC regime – which only got 42% of Durban voters’ support last November – with a genuine people’s government. Last Sunday, by electing as chair of the ANC in Durban the controversial former mayor Zandile Gumede – who in 2019 was arrested and charged with 2000 acts of corruption – the party’s delegates have put the nail in the party’s coffin.
Gumede was exemplary only in Durban Solid Waste procurement fraud and municipal greenwashing. After the Glebeland Hostels roof blew off in October 2017 (in the first of the three Rain Bombs to hit since the 1987 flood), she ignored it. Then in April 2019 when a record 168 millimeters fell on Durban in one day, killing 64 municipal residents, she failed to ensure compensation to those who suffered municipal adaptation failure.
Only R90 million was delivered for housing relief in mid-2019, though the city’s own estimate was R663 million in damage to human settlements. Gumede’s crucial leadership of Durban in the late 2010s during two Rain Bombs set the tone for this week’s failures.
The problems precede her rule, and include a devious World Bank scheme at Bisasar Road landfill meant to “privatise the air” by burning methane from organic waste in Swiss-sourced turbines. By all accounts it was a failure, but allowed former Mayor Obed Mlaba (who served 1996-2011) to move in with a get-rich-quick of incinerating the waste, a terrible environmental process. His other mistake was in hijacking a R3 billion tender by another entrepreneur, for which he should have been prosecuted but merely had to flee his subsequent job – as SA High Commissioner to Britain – in shame in 2017.
Mlaba oversaw the 2011 Durban hosting of the United Nations COP17 climate summit, one where protesters were illegally suppressed – requiring courts to overturn City Manager Mike Sutcliffe’s banning - and that was declared to be a “significant success for the United States,” as WikiLeaks records from Hillary Clinton’s emails show: https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/24887
But
it was also a success for the high-polluting companies
from the West – or for that matter China or South Africa –
which were allowed, over the past decade, to destroy our
planet, quite possibly beyond hope of repair. Thinking
absolutely nothing of poor people, Africans and future
generations, the firms sought to maximise profit or in
some cases to expand parastatal corporate reach, or in the
case of the top 10% of the world’s citizens who
over-pollute, continue their addiction to an unsustainable
lifestyle.
All the while, the politicians and bureaucrats in Durban
ignored imminent threats, even when in 2017 more than
100mm of rain fell, or in 2019 168mm fell, in each case
doing massive damage and killing innocent residents. The
city’s mafia-like construction companies and corrupt
politicians and officials have spent this period building
crummy houses that quickly fall apart, failing to
undergird homes with strong foundations, choosing
untenable hillsides for housing placement, and diverting
funds – but as the Mpisane and Singh empires showed, no
matter how corrupt, the municipality would always give
them new contracts.To add insult to injury, Gumede won
vice-chair status of U.S. media baron Michael Bloomberg’s
“C40 Cities Climate
Leadership” network just as widely-rumoured
procurement-scam charges were being prepared. And then a WWF “One
Planet City Challenge” gave her a 2018 award as “a leader
in climate action” thanks to Durban’s
combination of “ambitious targets and focused action with
community development initiatives.” These irrational
mainstream climate recognitions reflect how out of touch
the global climate elite are, with what was happening in Durban.
Nationally, we are also disgusted with political elites, because President Cyril Ramaphosa came to Durban this week where he postured: “This disaster is part of climate change. It is telling us that climate change is serious, it is here. We no longer can postpone what we need to do, and the measures we need to take to deal with climate change.”
But Ramaphosa had spent the early 2010s getting rich from coal mining. He was deputy chair of the National Development Plan which was committed to “opening up the Waterberg for coal mining (and) a new heavy- haul rail corridor to the Waterberg coal field (with expanded) export capacity in the line to Richards Bay.” The NDP also aimed to find “coal seam and shale gas reserves” so “gas-to-power projects should be fast-tracked (and) incorporate a greater share of gas in the energy mix, both through importing liquefied natural gas and if reserves prove commercial, using shale gas.”
This is the trajectory that led to highly-controversial marine seismic blasting and much greater reliance on fossil fuels in the energy sector’s Integrated Resource Plans. Ramaphosa’s fossil addiction also pulled us into the Mozambican “Blood Methane” conflict with Islamic insurgents, where our SANDF troops are defending Total, ExxonMobil and China National Petroleum Corporation in a hellish war zone.
We therefore reject Ramaphosa’s NDP and the Eskom “Just Energy Transition” for which 44% of funding will go to methane gas even though it is a far more damaging greenhouse gas than CO2.
The South African working class is desperate, due to the state’s economic mismanagement and the capitalist investment strike. We need immediate emergency relief in KZN’s disaster zone. But beyond that we need changes in the structure of power and in public policy.
We demand a serious Just Transition that will mean many more jobs for so many of our members and for a society whose livelihoods must decarbonise even more rapidly than the economy as a whole. To repair the damage done and rebuild Durban so it can withstand extreme weather will cost billions – and it is vital we embark upon this task with maximum commitment to permanent job creation, especially within the state so that the era of procurement scandals, outsourcing and corrupt Public Private Partnerships comes to a decisive end.And although we are firmly convinced that the South African ruling class and ruling party will reject this strategy, our members stand by in Durban and across the country to make a genuine Just Transition happen. We need to be able to tell future generations that the destructive mayhem of the climate catastrophe, the ruling party’s degeneration, the state’s repeated failures, and the capitalist system’s lethal threat to us all, can be replaced by eco-socialism.
Let's emphasise the need to build a powerful working class led, mass climate Justice movement to take seize political and economic power-through a nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy into a democratic public ownership, control and management to develop the organise the industry to meet the needs of the working class people for jobs, housing, quality public education and health services, in a more ecologically sustainable basis based on renewable energy especially abundant solar and wind power and vast reserves of minerals that can be beneficiated to equip generation, transmission and distribution of this energy to all.
Issued by GIWUSA. For further information, contact:
GIWUSA
John Appolis Mametlwe Sebei
GIWUSA General Secretary GIWUSA President
071 623 5996 081 368 0706
***
groundWork statement
Dear Friends
We doing an urgent and special reach out to our partners and funders we work with to consider urgent needed support to our partner organisation Abahlali baseMjondolo, whose members were heavily affected by the Durban floods this week. This was our second major flood in four years, the last was in 2019. This week's floods devastated shack settlements throughout Durban and KwaZulu Natal where Abahlali works with people challenging for better homes and services. This is climate change impacting on us now. Mitigation is important but loss and damage and adaptation is critical. This is climate injustice. This is why climate change is about people and the services that they need to be resilient against the devastation that is coming with climate change and it is about the here and now.
We call on you to urgently support Abahlali.
I have copied in S’Bu Zikode who is the President of Abahlali.
Please respond to S’Bu directly.
Abahlali’s Bank Account details:
Account name: Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA
Account holder address: 13-16 Diakonia Conference Centre, 20 Diakonia Avenue, Durban, 4000,
Bank name: First National Bank (FNB)
Bank address: Queen Street, Durban,
Account number: 62786238230
IBAN/SWIFT CODE: FIRNZAJJ
Currency: SA Rand
In Solidarity,
Bobby
***
https://abahlali.org/node/17478/#more-17478
The floods have affected the poorest of the poor the most
12 April 2022
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
The floods have affected the poorest of the poor the most
Every disaster in Durban – from the hard lockdown to the riots, fires and floods – hits the poor the hardest. Natural disasters become entwined with political disasters, often resulting in devastation for the poor.
Since 2005 we have been saying that the conditions under which we are forced to live in a repressive society are dangerous as well as undignified.
The floods in KwaZulu-Natal have devastated many shack settlements, and some rural areas too. Some people were rescued as the rivers burst their banks but many lives have been lost.
The number of people who have lost their lives has yet to be confirmed but our members witnessed people, including at least two babies, being taken by the water and many people are missing.
Huge numbers of people have lost their homes and all their possessions and are now entirely destitute. People living near rivers were worst affected. The communal garden at the eKhenana Occupation has been hit hard. Many people have been unable to go to work.
As we speak emergency services are rescuing people who have been affected
by these heavy rains. We salute all the men and women who undertake this dangerous work in the interests of society.
However across our branches people are bitterly disappointed by the lack of support from the eThekwini Municipality. The ANC in Durban are happy to elect gangster politicians, to rob the state and murder activists but they seem to have no interest in supporting the most vulnerable people in this time of disaster.
The focus is on support for business rather than on the poor and working class. The ANC does not care about the poor. All they do is to steal from the poor and then murder our leaders when we stand up for truth, justice and dignity.
We have no one but ourselves as we rebuild our lives. All our settlements are affected but the most affected at the moment are eNkanini, Cato Crest, eKhenana, Ekukhanyeni, Zamokuhle, Foreman Road, Kennedy Road, Briardene, eKuphumeleleni, KwaMamsuthu, Lindelani, Barcelona2 and eKhenana. In all these settlements people’s homes were washed away.
We are calling for progressive organisations to assist those who are affected at this time when politicians are only interested in tenders and t factional battles. We urgently need food, clothing, school uniforms and building materials and blankets.
This is moment in which we all need to stand together in solidarity. We need to build structures of solidarity and support across the city. We need what S’bu Zikode calls true leadership, leadership with real integrity, leadership committed to the safety, dignity and flourishing of all people everywhere.
In this crisis no one can be left behind.
When the waters have subsided we need to pick up the conversation about land and housing with much more urgency. We cannot continue to move from one disaster to the next while remaining in such undignified and dangerous conditions.
Contacts:
Thapelo Mohapi 074 774 4219
Mqapheli Bonono 073 067 3274
Busisiwe Diko 065 913 6881
Snenhlanhla Mncanyana 073 832 3331
***
NUMSA SENDS CONDOLENCES TO THOSE WHO LOST LOVED ONES DURING THE KZN FLOODS
15 April 2022
Press Alert
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) sends its deepest condolences to the family and friends of those who lost loved ones in the terrible floods that overtook parts of Kwa-Zulu Natal this week. So far 306 people have lost their lives and it seems the death toll will continue to grow. This is truly a heartbreaking and devastating disaster, and the most affected by this tragedy are the poor and the working class. People are unaccounted for and family members are missing. Areas like Claremont, Molweni, Umlazi, KwaMashu, Inanda and many others have been affected by landslides and sinkholes caused by heavy rains and floods. This is truly a humanitarian crisis on a scale that we have not seen in recent times.
The working class and the poor have been enduring shocking living conditions. This is not the first time heavy rains resulted in deaths. In 2019, 85 people died because heavy rainfall caused floods in parts of KZN during Easter and we can expect the situation to continue to worsen if it is not dealt with decisively. Many people are forced to build their homes on riverbanks because they are poor and cannot afford land or housing. People are desperate and they occupy land along the river bank because of this government’s failure to provide land and decent housing.
We also send our thoughts and prayers to our comrades from the landless peoples’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, (ABM). They have requested progressive organizations to assist with food, clothing, school uniforms and building materials and blankets. Hundreds of their members lost their homes and their belongings. We support the demands made by, ABM who are calling for government to allocate decent land so that people can be moved away from riverbanks. Land must be made available for the poor and marginalized and they must be allowed to build proper housing. There are calls for members of the public to assist with relief efforts, especially the provision of water, food and clothes. We urge NUMSA members to join in the relief efforts to help during this difficult time.
The SABC is reporting that as a result of the impact of the floods, a few shops have been looted because people are hungry and desperate. Last year in July we experienced unrest triggered by food riots and crippling poverty of the masses in the very same province.
NUMSA believes that as long as the working class majority does not own land, and does not own the commanding heights of the economy these natural disasters will always have devastating consequences for us. If we want a permanent solution to the crisis, of crippling poverty and unemployment, we need to drive a radical agenda for our benefit. This is why we continue to demand the nationalisation of all the commanding heights of the economy and for all minerals to be nationalized so they can be placed under the control of a progressive working class government. This is a government that drives an agenda for the working class. We want the wealth of country to be owned by the people and the benefits thereof must be used to improve the lives of people, such as providing free quality healthcare and education. It must also be used to allocate land so that decent housing can be built and we can put an end to informal settlements and shack dwelling. The working class are the creators of wealth. They deserve to live in decent homes, and they deserve an improved quality of life.
These changes cannot happen under the failed framework of ANC economic policies of the National Development Plan. Capitalism as a system has never succeeded in dealing decisively with inequality. It is a system designed to benefit the few who are very wealthy at the expense of the majority of people. We cannot expect that Capitalism will ever succeed in changing the lives of the majority of people, that is just not possible. NUMSA remains committed to this struggle. It is only when the working class is in charge and is driving its own agenda, that we will see genuine change in the quality of life for the majority of people. Until then, the masses will continue to suffer under a system which was not made to benefit them.
Aluta continua!
The struggle continues!
Issued on behalf of NUMSA by Irvin Jim
NUMSA General Secretary
For more information, please contact:
Phakamile Hlubi-Majola
NUMSA National Spokesperson
0833767725
NUMSA Head Office number: 0116891700
NUMSA Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NumsaSocial
NUMSA Twitter account: @Numsa_Media
NUMSA Website: https://numsa.org.za/
***
Climate justice coalition file criminal complaint against South Africa
In recent years, the weather patterns in South Africa’s coastal regions, including the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu Natal, have become increasingly erratic and unpredictable.
The move comes as nearly 400 people have been reported dead in KwaZulu Natal province, where a subtropical storm, Issa, also destroyed buildings, highways and infrastructure.
In documents submitted to the South African Police Services on Thursday, the Climate Justice Charter Movement (CJCM) wants the government to be found guilty of “culpable homicide” for its acts of omission to “prevent further emissions and to protect the vulnerable from increased inequality and poverty.”
CJCM, a coalition of several climate change activists and lobby groups from across the country, is arguing that the South African government is directly responsible for the deaths in KwaZulu Natal.
“We filed a criminal complaint in order to test the strength of our criminal justice system and our democracy,” said Vishwas Satgar, the board chairperson of Co-operative and Policy Alternative Centre, a member of the CJCM alliance. “It is the cheaper route than a civil case, and we have galvanised support from legal persons all over the country who agree that it is time to link the climate crisis to the rule of the justice system.”
The provincial government estimates that the damage amounts to billions, and has declared a State of Disaster, in order “to release funding to flood-affected communities”.
While visiting affected families in the flood-stricken region on Wednesday, President Cyril Ramaphosa blamed the heavy rainfall on the climate crisis, and said, “We can no longer postpone what we need to do, and the measures we need to take in order to deal with climate change.”
In November 2021, he secured a historic $8.5bn pledge at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) from the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and others to support South Africa’s transition to a low carbon economy.
But CJCM is saying that the government has been all talk and little action for almost three decades and “is fully aware of the urgency around the climate crisis but it is failing to take any action”.
Satgar insisted that the government has made little effort in fashioning a practical response to the climate crisis since the COP26 development and has no climate change strategy and “There is no concrete legislation being introduced,” he told Al Jazeera. “In this context, South Africa will continue to be vulnerable to the effects of climate change.”
During the years, the weather patterns in South Africa’s coastal regions, including the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu Natal, have become increasingly erratic and unpredictable.In 2019, both regions experienced severe droughts that destroyed crop farms. In the same year, floods killed more than 80 people in the same regions. This January, another devastating storm hit KwaZulu Natal killing 25 people.
According to the climate change coalition, they have made many unsuccessful attempts since 2018 to engage with the South African government about the urgency of climate change action.
“The government has known about the urgency of building climate resilience in infrastructure and centralising the climate emergency for decades and has done very little about it,” said Janet Solomon, an activist with Oceans Not Oil, a member of the coalition.
“By charging the government with culpable homicide, we’re saying this disaster is an issue of maladministration and criminal negligence. People are dying,” she added.
In a statement sent to Al Jazeera, the premier of KwaZulu Natal, Sihle Zikalala, who is also named in the documents, did not respond to specific questions about the filed complaints.
But he said “Both the timing and the severity of the flood disaster clearly suggest that we live in times of ecological imbalance linked to climate change and environmental degradation.”
Zikalala added that the government was “working hard to mitigate the impact”.
***
("We call on climate justice activists across the country to lay criminal charges against President Cyril Ramaphosa, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Gwede Mantshe, Minister of Fisheries, Forestry and the Environment Barbara Creecy, Mohammed Valli Moosa who is the deputy chair of the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC), KZN Premier Sihle Zikala and Ethekwini Metro City Mayor, Mxolisi Kaunda, for culpable homicide.")
Climate Justice Charter Movement
https://cjcm.org.za/media/releases/89532199-89c9-404c-a8a3-158bc7ba05c8/download
Press statement:
Attention: SAPS Station Commanders
Shamila Batohi, National Prosecuting Head
Climate Shocks, Flooding in KZN and the Loss of Innocent Lives
This is Not a Natural Disaster!
We are Charging the President, Ministers, Deputy Chairperson of the Presidential Climate Commission, Premier of KZN and Mayor of Ethekwini Metro with Culpable Homicide
The South African government has failed to take the climate crisis seriously and it must be held accountable for its dereliction of duty. The South African government has been part of the UN-COP and International Panel on Climate Change process since the early 1990s. Almost three decades later, not much has happened to protect South Africa from the worsening climate crisis. As a signatory to IPPC reports, the South African government signed off on the 2021 report The Physical Science Basis of Climate Change which affirms we are living in a world of climate extremes and urgent action is needed. The South African government also signed off on two reports released this year (AR6 Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability in February 2022 and the Mitigation of Climate Change Report released in April 2022) which confirm the need for urgent climate emergency action. Yet the government has stood by.
There is a clear pattern of destructive and extreme weather patterns in KZN as a result of the climate crisis. La Nina induced droughts from 2014-to 2016 decimated livestock and crop farming across the province, leaving many subsistence farmers without food. In 2019 devastating floods and mudslides killed over 80 people including a 6-month-old baby, a tornado also had devastating impacts in the province and late last year and at the beginning of 2022, the province witnessed another devastating flood that caused severe destruction in towns such as Ladysmith which lead to a state of disaster.
The
current ‘flash flood’ has tragically claimed the lives so
far of 259 people including children, old people and shack
dwellers. There are expectations that the death toll will go
up given that many persons have still not been accounted
for. This is worse than the Life Esidemeni tragedy in which
144 innocent people lost their lives because of negligent
and unlawful government action. Our heartfelt condolences go
out to all the families and loved ones of those taken away
by the flood. However, we are not dealing with a ‘natural
disaster’ which could not be foreseen, given the urgencies
and concerns raised by climate science and lived experience.
If the South African government took its Paris Climate
commitments seriously, heeded climate science and
appreciated the pattern of extreme climate impacts in
everyday life, the country would have been on a climate
emergency footing a long time ago. We need climate justice
for the victims of failed government leadership. The harms
of this flood are the result of an uncaring, rotten, corrupt
and failing government, at the national, provincial and
local government levels. Instead of looting, mismanagement
and fomenting violence, the ANC in power in KZN should have
been using public money to upgrade infrastructure, provide
homes, provide a lead in mitigation, adaptation and
ultimately the deep just transition. Instead, it has brought
great harm to the people.
There is also a history of the ANC government not listening to the climate justice movement and the warnings we have been giving about the worsening climate crisis.
In October 2018, together with over 60 allies, we called for an emergency sitting of parliament to deliberate on the significance of a 1.5C report of the UN-IPPC particularly what this would mean for vulnerabilities the country will face and the implications this has for climate policies. The government ignored us. In April 2019 after the devastating floods in KZN, we called on the government to declare a climate emergency and develop a just transition plan for South Africa and address the multiple shocks that climate science warned are going to get worse. Again, the government ignored us. In 2020 we called on the government to adopt the Climate Justice Charter , endorsed by 261 organisations, and to put the entire country on a climate emergency footing to deal with the devastating impacts of the climate crisis. We shared a Climate Science Document prepared by South Africa’s leading climate scientists on the dangerous climate future we face and the need for action. We also shared a memorandum from communities with parliament wanting an end to hunger, thirst, pollution and climate harm. We have been ignored. We reiterated this call in 2021 when we gathered outside our parliament on 9 November 2021. We were ignored again. The ANC government refused to listen and South Africa does not have a just transition plan, it does not have a mitigation strategy to stop more coal, oil and gas extraction and use. In fact, it wants to do the opposite. Nor does it have an adaptation plan to deal with multiple climate crisis shocks. Mere disaster relief measures are just piece-meal and reactive, they will not work, the country needs to be on a climate emergency footing.
Instead of taking the climate crisis seriously and despite being aware of climate science, this government has pursued more gas, coal and oil investments. It is also wanting to invest in expensive and dangerous nuclear power. The ANC government pursued the gas amendment bill and the upstream petroleum development bill while neglecting to fulfil its bare minimal commitments to the Paris Climate Accord. In this context, the Presidential Climate Commission has been failing to address the real issue of a deep and just transition. It is just a smokescreen while the government continues on its destructive and ecocidal path. It is clear that unless we force the government to act, nothing will get done and innocent lives will continue to be lost.
We, therefore, call on climate justice activists across the country to lay criminal charges against President Cyril Ramaphosa, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Gwede Mantshe, Minister of Fisheries, Forestry and the Environment Barbara Creecy, Mohammed Valli Moosa who is the deputy chair of the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC), KZN Premier Sihle Zikala and Ethekwini Metro City Mayor, Mxolisi Kaunda, for culpable homicide related to those that have been killed during the flood. Culpable Homicide is the unlawful and negligent killing of another human being. We have a government that is breaking its own laws, commitments to the Paris Agreement and the constitution as it relates to our rights to a safe environment. We have a moral and constitutional duty to hold our leaders to account, in this regard we must not fail.
We want all climate justice activists and allies to go to police stations tomorrow, 14th April, at 11am.
Charles Simane and Awande Buthelezi will be leading CJC M activists – Johannesburg Central Police Station, 1 Commissioner St, Ferreiras Dorp, Johannesburg.
Janet Solomon will be leading #OceanNotOil and CJC M activists - Mayville SAPS - 145 Jan Smuts Highway.
We also demand a meeting with Shamila Batohi to discuss these charges.
Ends
For further information, contact:
Awande Buthelezi, COPAC organiser, SAFSC and CJCM activist, 079 613 8191
Charles Simane, COPAC researcher and organiser, SAFSC activist and CJCM activist, 073 284 1126
Jane Cherry, COPAC Executive Manager, SAFSC activist and CJCM activist, 084 236 3649
Janet Solomon, #OceansNotOil and CJCM activist, 083 789 1067
Vishwas Satgar, COPAC board chairperson, SAFSC and CJCM activist, 082 775 3420
***
The impact of changing weather patterns
Apr 12, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTRz0aXmvA0
KwaZulu-Natal has been badly affected in the past few years by heavy rains and floods. Often, it is the poorest and the most vulnerable who are most affected by the impacts of climate change. To speak to us on the impact of the changing weather patterns, we are joined by Desmond D’sa of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance.
Steven Grootes (SG): As you know, badly affected in the last few years by heavy rains and floods, often the poorest and most vulnerable or most affected by the impact of climate change. We’re joined now, about the impact of changing weather patterns, by Desmond D’Sa from the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance. Desmond, good afternoon to you. You’ve suggested that this flooding is directly the result of climate change. Why do you believe that?
Desmond D’Sa (DD): Well you know, it’s happening all over the world. It’s happened quite a number of years now. And this is a reminder that we have been talking to government. In 2019 we had that huge flood and, continuously, government has said that they’re able to manage. They can adapt to the changing climate and they will have the necessary resources to deal with the problem. Clearly they don’t have it.
And climate change is getting worse, as we have seen with this flood that has taken place for over a number of days. I mean we’ve been driving around the communities and you know clearly that the stormwater drains have not been maintained over a number of years. But more importantly is that they’ve got no plan. There is no plan to go and inform people.
People are still hanging on roofs as of today, as I talk to you. People are still hanging on roofs. They’re unable to be rescued. Government hasn’t got a plan. All the roads are blocked. Policemen are just on the main roads and the main freeways, but they are doing nothing there besides shining their lights. It’s not as if the police are out there removing or evacuating people. A lot of people have lost their lives.
We must be able to hold the government accountable for not acting in our interest. And when President Ramaphosa was elected, he came to Durban after the huge flood we had here in the province [in April 2019]. And he came here, where 70 people died. And he made a commitment that he will ensure that the disaster management plan works for all the people.
But we see now with this flood that the disaster management plan does not work for anyone. That’s because there’s a lack of government in the city and in the province.
SG: I mean, to have a disaster management plan to be able to manage a disaster requires a huge amount of resources. Do you really believe that KwaZulu-Natal and the City of eThekwini have those resources?
DD: They don’t have. Most of the money over the years has been has been shifted to other sexy projects such as big events. And they’ve moved the money away from the major infrastructure projects where they could have resolved a lot of the issues. That is the problem.
The problem is that the budgets that were allocated for these major projects to ensure that disasters of this nature will be dealt with, and don’t impact on the society as a whole – we’ve seen now once again that in a disaster of this nature, they don’t have the resources, the fire brigade, the fire officers in Durban are under-resourced. We’ve seen that with huge explosions and fires that have occurred during the looting [of July 2021].
They don’t have the necessary equipment and we’ve seen with the impact of this flooding, and all that’s taking place throughout the city, that there’s definitely no resources for the police, for all the security services, for all the major infrastructure departments such as water, sanitation and all that there. We just don’t have it.
SG: So you talk about climate change. You’ve suggested in the past that government has failed people. You refer to what President Ramaphosa said, that the refinery of course is in Durban. It may have played a role in climate change. The problem is that for all societies and particularly ours – which is generally a poor society – to try and move away from petrol-driven cars, to try and move away from coal-fired power stations, is a process. It’s not a quick process, you can’t just do it like that. What that means is that we have a situation where you make demands of government, dismantling [fossil fuel infrastructure]. I’ve spoken to you about them before. I have no argument with what you say, but it can’t be done quickly.
DD: Now, we understand that. That is why there has to be a Just Transition away from fossil fuel. There has to be investment.
Government is getting – after the Glasgow agreement announcements about the U.S. and Europeans and the West providing a lot of money [$8.5 billion for decarbonisation] to give South Africa an opportunity to move away [from coal]. What are they going to do with that money? They need to take the citizens in this country, in this city, into their confidence, so that we can sit down and know exactly where this money is going to. And if it is really going to meeting the needs of the poor people and moving to a Just Transition.
Clearly, that is not happening. There’s no discussions with community groups. There’s no discussions to create jobs that are energy efficient, but more critically, that move us away from the causes of climate change in South Africa.
And it can be done. It’s being done in Egypt. It’s being done in Morocco. It’s done in Tunisia. And they are supplying energy to the European countries. Why can’t it be done in South Africa, in the Northern Cape and in the Eastern Cape with windmills. We have solar farms. Why can’t we expand that project, so that it will kill two birds with one stone, and create millions of jobs and at the same time, don’t harm the environment. And it will not cause more climate problems than we’re experiencing right now. Because this is a deadly warning.
SG: All right. We will leave it there. Desmond D’Sa, thank you. From the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance.
On 4/12/2022 8:43 PM, Patrick Bond wrote:
("A staggering 351mm of rain was recorded in Durban over the last 24 hours - more than doubling the previous rainfall record in the city of 165mm of rain in April 2019. And more of these severe weather events can be expected, according to a UKZN climate change expert."
Durban hosted the 2011 UNFCCC Conference of Polluters 17, but the host government and capitalists learned absolutely nothing about the need to put resources into adaptation, resilience and climate-proofing the vulnerable port city.
Here's a good explanation of climate-crisis attribution, by UKZN Prof Tafadzwanashe Mabhaudhi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6TGsG8zG1E
And in addition, Prof. Anthony Turton makes the link to climate change, and the need for rebuilding infrastructure more seriously, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew6wH-lUipU
There are many sources that reveal the extreme damage and socio-economic implications for poor neighbourhoods, but here is one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p99fw_iLWH4
Toxins from that damn Mumbai-headquartered UPL factory incineration were stored in a slime dam. Now it's busted, too. Bourgeois holidaymakers planning on an Easter weekend at Umhlanga or Umdloti better think again. And down south, a wonderful 70-year old Hindu temple in Chatsworth on the side of the Umhlatazana River, is now washed away.
Here's background context from the 2019 Rain Bomb, by South Durban community leader Des D'Sa, reminding of the desperate need for a genuine Just Transition in Durban: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-05-24-durban-floods-an-open-letter-to-president-cyril-ramaphosa/ with many more such reminders of Durban's ruling-class failures below.)
Durban community forum says the government failed to plan for climate change
12 April 2022
Jehran Naidoo, Daily News
Durban – The South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA), an organisation based in Wentworth, KwaZulu-Natal, said this week that it views the recent storm which devastated the province as “systemic failure by the government” at a national, provincial and municipal level.
This after homes, buildings and road infrastructure around the province were flooded and destroyed due to heavy rains that started on Friday and receded on Tuesday.
SDCEA,’s Shanice Firmin is of the view that the government failed to plan and provide early warning signs for people, despite knowing some areas were susceptible to flooding.
“What worries us is that the same problems plague our city every time we have an extreme storm. Ever-higher record rainfalls have hit our province in October 2017, April 2019 and last weekend, reaching 200mm in a 24-hour period.
“There are too many cases of poor drainage systems within the city. We lack a serious climate adaptation and resilience strategy in spite of all the absurd hype the municipality generates.
“In South Durban, we still lack evacuation plans, in spite of known flooding in areas like the M4 and N2 highways, Tara Road, the Sapref Refinery, the M9 and South Coast Road. We see that there are still no plans in place, to address the what are increasingly severe weather conditions,” Firmin said.
In 2017, two people died while around 10 went missing in KwaMashu and Umlazi during the floods caused by heavy rains.
On Tuesday, KZN provincial government officials held a multi-disciplinary conference in which it detailed its plan to clean up the city and what actions were being taken in the wake of the floods.
Durban mayor Mxolisi Kaunda said once the city received an alert from the SA Weather Service, it informed the public and put disaster teams on standby.
As the weekend progressed, the storm worsened, however, leaving many residents around the city displaced. Kaunda explained that the city’s call centres were inundated.
“We immediately took a decision to open all halls in our residential areas, to accommodate residents that were displaced. Following a number of reports that were logged in our call centres, the entire system was overwhelmed and it became very difficult for many of our residents to get through.
“It would then be remiss of me not to sincerely apologise to all those who were in need of our assistance but unable to reach us,” the Durban mayor said.
Kaunda said most of the city’s power stations were flooded and work is under way repairing them.
Water treatment facilities, including Umgeni Water, were also damaged. He said it was too soon to account for damages.
As weather reports indicate that Durban had been caught in the eye of what is believed to be a cut-off low storm, CoGTA reports say that around 20 people have died with an unconfirmed number gone missing.
City spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela said on Tuesday that a number of municipal services were off-line in the wake of the devastation.
Mayisela said that refuse removal, cemeteries, bus services and health care facilities were all affected by the storm and not operational on Tuesday.
IOL
***
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61080056
South Africa's Durban floods: At least 45 die as rain and mudslides cause havoc
1 hour ago
Image source, Reuters
Image caption,
Many residents along the coast fear their homes may collapse after mudslides
At least 45 people in South Africa have been killed in floods caused by days of heavy rain, the authorities say.
It happened in the coastal province of KwaZulu-Natal, where many people are still missing and emergency services are searching for survivors.
Some in the city of Durban are standing on rooftops awaiting rescue, but local media report that only one helicopter is available to lift people away.
Key roads across the city are shut and mudslides have destroyed many homes.
It comes as scientists warn that climate change is fuelling heavier rainfall than usual in southern Africa.
***
Record 351mm rain dumps on Durban as experts warn this is climate change in action
The M13 freeway was closed on Tuesday morning due to massive mudslides. Picture: Social media
Published 4h ago
DURBAN: A staggering 351mm of rain was recorded at Virginia Airport in Durban over the last 24 hours - more than doubling the previous rainfall record in the city of 165mm of rain in April 2019.
And more of these severe weather events can be expected, according to a UKZN climate change expert.
This as mopping-up operations continued across KwaZulu Natal on Tuesday morning, with reports of houses having collapsed, cars washed away, raging rivers and major routes blocked with mud and debris following a horrific night of torrential rain and flash floods.
Numerous houses were flooded across Durban during the flash floods which dumped record amounts of rain in the city. Picture: Social media
Emergency and rescue crews worked through the night responding to calls for help from people trapped in houses, on top of roofs and in cars as banks and roads washed away. The number of dead and injured are still be confirmed.
The SA Weather Service confirmed that over 200mm fell in the Durban area, with some areas getting more than others. Virginia Airport measured 351mm, King Shaka International Airport 255mm, with areas such as Wentworth measuring 124mm, while down the South Coast Margate measured 311mm while the North Coast was not so badly hit, with only with 89mm and Pietermaritzburg measuring 98mm.
Forecaster Ishmael Moyo said on Tuesday morning that rain was expected to continue into the afternoon and evening, but that there would be lighter showers than previously experienced over the last 24 hours.
On Tuesday, University of KwaZulu-Natal climate change expert Professor Tafadzwanashe Mabhaudi said weather extremes resulting in flooding could be expected to occur again and the level of preparedness for such devastating weather events needed to be addressed.
“Whether it’s drought or flash floods, we do expect more weather extremes due to climate change. Not too long ago (2019) we had flooding and massive landslides and this is now becoming a pattern.
“There is a low level of preparedness and only the SA Weather Service issued a warning.
“People were caught unawares and there needs to be more long-term preparedness in terms of building capacity to deal with these events, as well as putting information out as that people living in low-lying areas and flood prone areas need to be aware and prepared,” said Mabhaudi.
Town planning expert from University of KwaZulu-Natal Professor Hangwelani Magidimisha-Chipungu said that low-lying areas “were not the problem, but at the receiving end of the problem” and becoming victims.
“We need to invest in catchment areas, hilly areas where the infrastructure and drainage needs to be sound. If that doesn’t happen, a lot of water which should be contained in the catchment areas ends up in the low-lying areas.
“The infrastructure in low-lying areas, the drainage systems also need to be sound and carry the capacity within its own environment.
“We also need to look at issues of flooding from the perspective of urbanisation. Why do we end up having people staying in informal settlements and in low-lying areas which are prone to floods? The level of urbanisation is unprecedented, it is so high. It’s not followed by sound infrastructure for the people. We have opened our cities, but where are they going to stay?
“They utilise open spaces and for town planning, we leave open spaces as they are not ideal for residential purposes.
“People need to be educated that some areas, especially low-lying areas, are prone to flooding,” said Magidimisha-Chipungu, highlighting that research indicated which areas were most likely to experience flooding and therefore not suitable for residential purposes, and because of climate change, the issue around disaster and flooding was cropping up more frequently.
Ethekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda held a media briefing at midday on Tuesday when he said emergency teams were “working tirelessly” in affected areas, especially with regard to water and electricity services being impacted in different areas across the cities.
He called on churches and NGOs to help assist with those affected by the floods. “We need all hands on to help save lives,” said Kaunda.
***
12 April 2022
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
The floods have affected the poorest of the poor the most
Every disaster in Durban – from the hard lockdown to the riots, fires and floods – hits the poor the hardest. Natural disasters become entwined with political disasters, often resulting in devastation for the poor.
Since 2005 we have been saying that the conditions under which we are forced to live in a repressive society are dangerous as well as undignified.
The floods in KwaZulu-Natal have devastated many shack settlements, and some rural areas too. Some people were rescued as the rivers burst their banks but many lives have been lost.
The number of people who have lost their lives has yet to be confirmed but our members witnessed people, including at least two babies, being taken by the water and many people are missing.
Huge numbers of people have lost their homes and all their possessions and are now entirely destitute. People living near rivers were worst affected. The communal garden at the eKhenana Occupation has been hit hard. Many people have been unable to go to work.
As we speak emergency services are rescuing people who have been affected by these heavy rains. We salute all the men and women who undertake this dangerous work in the interests of society.
However across our branches people are bitterly disappointed by the lack of support from the eThekwini Municipality. The ANC in Durban are happy to elect gangster politicians, to rob the state and murder activists but they seem to have no interest in supporting the most vulnerable people in this time of disaster.
The focus is on support for business rather than on the poor and working class. The ANC does not care about the poor. All they do is to steal from the poor and then murder our leaders when we stand up for truth, justice and dignity.
We have no one but ourselves as we rebuild our lives. All our settlements are affected but the most affected at the moment are eNkanini, Cato Crest, eKhenana, Ekukhanyeni, Zamokuhle, Foreman Road, Kennedy Road, Briardene, eKuphumeleleni, KwaMamsuthu, Lindelani, Barcelona2 and eKhenana. In all these settlements people's homes were washed away.
We are calling for progressive organisations to assist those who are affected at this time when politicians are only interested in tenders and t factional battles. We urgently need food, clothing, school uniforms and building materials and blankets.
This is moment in which we all need to stand together in solidarity. We need to build structures of solidarity and support across the city. We need what S’bu Zikode calls true leadership, leadership with real integrity, leadership committed to the safety, dignity and flourishing of all people everywhere.
In this crisis no one can be left behind.
When the waters have subsided we need to pick up the conversation about land and housing with much more urgency. We cannot continue to move from one disaster to the next while remaining in such undignified and dangerous conditions.
Contacts:
Thapelo Mohapi 074 774 4219
Mqapheli Bonono 073 067 3274
Busisiwe Diko 065 913 6881
Snenhlanhla Mncanyana 073 832 3331
***
· Ios
· News
Durban Chamber demands eThekwini share its plans to improve drainage and prevent transport congestion
Ethekwini residents worry that further mudslides will see them losing everything. Picture: Reuters
Published 1h ago
Durban - Two days of persistent heavy rains had resulted in "catastrophic flooding" in the eThekwini municipal district, impacting the road network and infrastructure, including major highways such as the M4 and N2, the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry said yesterday.
CEO Palesa Phili said the road networks were crucial as they provided links between business and industries.
"Any loss in any part of this economic infrastructure for an unspecified period will have a devastating impact on the manufacturing, travel and tourism, agriculture and many more, and this inevitably causing huge loss through operations and expenses in business. Many businesses cannot afford further losses as they are still recovering from 2021 July unrest and the Covid-19 pandemic," said Phili.
It was too early to state the quantum of economic losses, but the chamber's observation was that properties and various critical infrastructure had been severely damaged.
Phili said any further rainfall could lead to further flooding, as the ground was completely saturated.
"The magnitude and the frequency of these storms are proving to be a massive risk to the growth and development of the local economy, especially in an already constrained economic environment with a major challenge being the inability to transport and deliver goods and services to various destinations due to flooding and traffic congestion," she said.
The chamber said the South of Durban, home to some of South Africa's largest manufacturers, continued to receive heavy rain.
It called on law enforcement to be visible, having received reports that criminals were using the disaster to commit crime, including several container trucks stuck on the road being looted.
Phili called for a review of stormwater drainage systems to ensure that rainwater can be easily drained away. The chamber urged the local and provincial governments to urgently share their disaster management plans and take steps to reduce the dangers and potential damage of the heavy rainfall.
"As a port city, eThekwini is heavily reliant on the logistics sector and our road infrastructure, and the government needs to communicate and immediately action its plan for infrastructure maintenance and development that will improve drainage and traffic congestion issues," said Phili.
***
KZN flood: Chemical depot's dam with toxins overflows
https://www.news24.com/fin24/companies/kzn-flood-chemical-depots-dam-with-toxins-overflows-20220412
The burned down UPL Chemical Factory in Cornubia, Durban.
Thabiso Goba
A pollution control dam at UPL’s fire-damaged chemical warehouse near Durban has spilled following heavy rains.
The warehouse was torched by looters in July last year and the fire released a range of dangerous harmful chemicals into the air and nearby watercourses. Significant numbers of fish died and beaches were closed as a result, while the residents complained about air pollution. The Environment Ministry has said UPL didn’t have the appropriate permits to store the chemicals, an allegation the company denied.
The dam, a re-purposed storm-water facility, had been carefully managed and its contents taken to a landfill, the company said in a statement.
Drone footage taken on Tuesday shows dramatic visuals of destruction in Umdloti, KZN due to severe runoff following days of heavy rain in the region.
“The heavy rains over the weekend and continuing into last night have however created an unprecedented volume of storm-water in the PCD,” UPL said. “In response to this threat, UPL had resumed extraction to tankers and the specialist team implemented systems to reduce the volume of rainwater entering the PCD. Despite these interventions, due to ongoing heavy rainfall the PCD still over-topped.”
Specialists appointed by UPL said the spilled water has “extremely diluted” contaminants, according to the company.
***
Daily Maverick
South Africa
PROVINCIAL DISASTER
Death toll mounts as KZN sinks beneath torrential rains, floods amid decimated infrastructure
This bridge at Nhlungwane extension was washed away, leaving a huge hole. It was on the main road connecting Ntuzuma and areas such as Inanda and KwaMashu. (Photo: Mandla Langa)
By Des Erasmus
12 Apr 2022 0
After more than four days of constant rain, KwaZulu-Natal’s infrastructure, which has been under strain from years of under-investment and poor maintenance, buckled. This led to multiple drownings, landslides, power outages, water shortages and flooding of bridges, homes and businesses on Monday and Tuesday. And the wet weather is set to resume through the Easter weekend
Scores of people have died, suburban walls have collapsed, vehicles have ploughed into newly-formed sinkholes, cemeteries have flooded and many businesses have temporarily closed.
Adding to the complexity is that rescue teams across the city are cut off from each other with major thoroughfares completely flooded, roads washed away and some bridges nearing collapse. The inclement weather has also prevented any major air support from getting off the ground.
Just metres from the bridge that was washed away in Ntuzuma, northwest of Durban, a number of people and their homes were swept away by the deluge that swamped their homes. (Photo: Mandla Langa)
The death toll mounts
At last count, four people had officially been confirmed dead, but this is a moving target, with more deaths yet to be confirmed. On Tuesday afternoon, Premier Sihle Zikalala said he would be in Georgedale, in the Hammarsdale area, where five members of one family died.
At a press briefing on Tuesday afternoon, eThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda said that “many people had lost their lives”, but that the provincial department of cooperative governance (Cogta) had been tasked with releasing the official number of fatalities.
A journalist door-stopped Cogta MEC Sipho Hlomuka just after that briefing, where the MEC said that 45 people had lost their lives in eThekwini alone.
Kaunda said the city’s call centre had been overwhelmed on Monday night and it was not possible to tend to every issue phoned in.
The storm and flood-ravaged wreckage of houses in KwaZulu-Natal. (Picture: Mandla Langa)
“Most of the city’s electricity power stations have been flooded and our teams were unable to access them [on Monday night]. There are certain water treatment plants that have been damaged, including those that belong to Umgeni water.”
The cost of the damage was yet to be tallied, said Kaunda.
He said the city would “interact” with those who had lost family members.
He confirmed that some cemeteries were flooded but did not comment on reports that coffins had been left exposed at the Ntuzuma cemetery, north of Durban.
Landslides and disrepair
Kaunda said that scores of residents, including himself, were without water.
He said that there was ongoing “communication” with the South African National Defence Force, which had been approached to assist the city and province. It was hoped the defence force would arrive on Tuesday evening, he said.
He sidestepped questions about the state of the city’s drainage and stormwater infrastructure, which has been in a state of disrepair for several years, saying that most of the issues currently being experienced related to landslides.
By Tuesday lunchtime, the Passenger Rails Association of South Africa (Prasa) took a decision to “temporarily close the Cato Ridge line due to the heavy rains that affected the safety of trains running on that line”.
People trying to cross a river in Ntuzuma where a bridge was washed away. (Photo: Mandla Langa)
Roads washed away and cables exposed
Meanwhile, a key entrance to the Durban port, known as Bayhead Road, which runs along a canal, has had large parts of the road washed away, with piping and electrical cables now exposed. Nearby trucks can be seen partially submerged while flooding is threatening warehouses close to the canals. Transnet Port Terminals told Daily Maverick it would be releasing a statement on damage to its properties throughout the course of the day.
The industrial suburb of Prospecton in iSipingo, South of Durban where containers were scattered during severe floods in the area. (Photo: Mandla Langa)
Durban’s river systems, such as the Umbilo, Umgeni, Amanzimtoti and Ohlanga rivers have all burst their banks, endangering the lives of informal dwellers.
Collating the damage
“Our teams are still collating the extent of the damage so far. Disaster management teams have been evacuating people in areas that have experienced mudslides, flooding, and structural collapses of buildings and roads. The heavy rains have affected power lines in many municipalities with technical teams working around the clock to restore power,” said Hlomuka.
He is due to officially address the media on Tuesday afternoon, where an update on the number of deaths is expected.
Inundated with emergency calls
Craig Lambinon, spokesman for the NSRI, said their stations along the coastline were continuing to assist emergency services in multiple flood-related incidents along the coast and inland.
He said that on Monday night and Tuesday morning, rescue teams were “inundated with emergency calls and are continuing to assist in flood-related incidents involving local citizens, domestic and farm animals and wildlife”.
Power outages
MTN said on Tuesday that 500 sites were down in KZN, the result of infrastructure damage and power outages due to the rain. Contingency plans had been activated for site restoration, it said.
North Coast Road in Durban, where parked cars were washed away by the floods. (Photo: Mandla Langa)
Dam warning
The Department of Water and Sanitation warned residents living downstream to stay away from dams owing to an imminent increase of outflow from them.
“Residents are warned to steer clear of the dam areas. Communities with equipment in and near the dams are asked to remove them so as to ensure that no damage is caused,” he said.
It had also been decided that Umgeni Water would release water from the Hazelmere Dam north of Durban, as a safety measure while work continued to raise the dam wall.
More downpours forecast over Easter
If forecasts are correct, the driving winds and rain are expected to subside over the next 24-hours, but the respite will be short-lived, with downpours forecast to continue over the Easter weekend and into next week.
Cogta MEC Sipho Hlomuka advised residents in low lying areas to seek shelter on higher ground, with public halls being opened to accommodate those in need.
According to the South African Weather Service, the heavy rainfall is set to continue and will affect municipalities such as eThekwini Metro, KwaDukuza, Mandeni, Maphumulo, Ndwedwe, uMlalazi, Msunduzi, Ray Nkonyeni, Umdoni, Mkhambathini, Richmond, Msunduzi, Ubuhlebezwe, uMngeni, uMshwathi, Umuziwabantu, Umvoti, Umzimkhulu, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Umzumbe. DM
Prospecton in iSipingo, South of Durban where containers were dislodged and scattered through heavy flooding in the area. (Photo: Mandla Langa)
***
Hindu temple in Durban washes away after heavy rains
Published 9h ago
Durban - A 70-year-old Hindu temple in Umhlatuzana, Chatsworth, has been destroyed by the storm ravaging the KwaZulu-Natal province.
The temple, which sits on a bank next to the Umhlatuzana River, was seen submerged in water as pieces of the structure slowly fell away into the river.
IOL photojournalist Doctor Ngcobo braved the elements and captured a video of the temple being washed away.
It is a sore topic for community members who visit the temple as it suffered around R500 000 in damages during the heavy rains and flooding in 2017.
Assistant secretary of the temple, Kureasha Moodley, told IOL on Tuesday that it happened around the same time as it did in 2017. After the 2017 damage, the temple was rebuilt with donations and sponsors from community members.
During that time, only the temple yard suffered major damage, but the recent storm destroyed the entire place, Moodley said.
The temple, which is an integral part of the Hindu community in Chatsworth and surrounding areas, was recently done up and had a few new installations that were all washed away.
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A view of the rising water levels on Monday evening. Image: Supplied.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, temple members had to rush to the site to rescue two people who live at the temple.
Moodley said the entire place was in darkness and flooded. She said the two men were found in a staircase desperately trying to evade the raging waters.
“The deities in our Vishnu temple are still there, but in the mother temple everything is gone. We could not remove them because they are solid granite and are fixed to the temple floor.
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“It is the only temple in the area and I think our devotees have been coming here for over 60 to 70 years. For the past number of years, we have built it up and extended and even added a hall, but after this it will take us a very long time to get back to where we were,” Moodley said.
“The last time, the mother temple and some parts of the yard were still standing. The water came in through doors and windows, but this time the temple yard is non-existent,” she added.
***
Extreme rainfall and widespread flooding overnight: KwaZulu-Natal and parts of Eastern Cape
Meteosat RGB composite image at 11h00SAST 12 April 2022, clearly indicating the cyclonic swirl of deep convective cloud, associated with heavy rain, just off the southern coastline KwaZulu-Natal. Source: Eumetsat, © 2022.
CAPE TOWN - The current rainfall system that has lashed KwaZulu-Natal will have weakened considerably by Wednesday, heralding a spell of a few days of settled, dry weather, the South African Weather Service (SAWS) says.
However, rain is expected to return to many provinces ahead of and during the coming Easter weekend when many people will be travelling to other parts of the country, the SAWS said on Tuesday.
“Following a weekend of widespread rainfall over much of the country, the cut-off low system responsible for the inclement weather began moving eastwards over KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape overnight.
“Whilst impact-based warnings were indeed issued in a timely manner by the South African Weather Service, it appears that the exceptionally heavy rainfall overnight and this morning exceeded even the expectations of the southern African meteorological community at large.”
At 4pm on Monday a Level 5 warning was issued for the coast and adjacent interior of KwaZulu-Natal. This was subsequently escalated to a Level 8 warning at 8pm.
However, following reports of further impacts and persistent, heavy rainfall, SAWS has now upgraded the heavy rain warning to an Orange Level 9 for the remainder of Tuesday.Accumulated rainfall (mm) for the period 8 to 11 April 2022 (including the first 8 hours of 12 April). Of particular interest and relevance are the values indicated in light pink, indicating 200-400 mm. Source SAWS.
“Overnight rainfall reports from KwaZulu-Natal have underscored the particularly heavy and extreme nature of the rainfall, with some 24-hour falls exceeding 200mm. More noteworthy is that a few stations even reported 300mm or more.”
King Shaka International Airport recorded 225mm rain, Margate 311mm, Mount Edgecombe 307mm, Port Edward 188mm as well as Virginia airport in Durban north with 304mm.
The SAWS added: “The good news is that by tomorrow the current rainfall system will have weakened considerably, heralding a spell of a few days of settled dry weather. However, the public should take note that rain is expected to return to many of our provinces ahead of and during the coming Easter weekend when many people will be travelling to other parts of the country. The public are therefore urged to continue to monitor forecasts and warnings issued by SAWS. A dedicated media release, covering the weather forecast for the Easter weekend, will be issued by SAWS soon.”
The public was urged to regularly follow weather forecasts via www.weathersa.co.za or the SA Weather Service Twitter account @SAWeatherService
Cape Times
On 4/12/2022 3:40 PM, Patrick Bond wrote:
KZN floods claim 45 lives with the death toll likely to rise
https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/live-rain-flooding-hit-kwazulu-natal-20220412
WATCH | KZN roads washed away, residents warned to avoid travelling
Several roads have collapsed and major arteries into Durban, including the N2 and M4, are underwater. News24 has seen footage of water standing as high as the barrier between oncoming lanes on the M4, as well as images of sections of the road completely washed away in some areas.
WATCH | Heavy rains and floods have hit KwaZulu-Natal; trucks and containers wash away
7 hours ago
WATCH | Flooding destroys important freight channel in Durban harbour
36 mins ago
WATCH | Opportunists loot trucks amid KZN floods
2 hours ago
WATCH | Petrol tanker drifting in the surf at Umgeni River mouth
4 hours ago
***
Sapref workers rescued from flooded refinery in KZN
Some employees said they were seeking refuge on the roof while they waited to be airlifted to safety
12 April 2022 - 13:30 Suthentira Govender
Sapref oil refinery, south of Durban, has been flooded. Picture: VIA FACEBOOK.
A rescue mission is in progress at Sapref, a major crude oil refinery south of Durban, where workers were airlifted from the flooded plant.
A worker made an urgent plea for help on the Facebook page Wentworth (SA) Represent!, saying: “We need help at Sapref. Phone someone please. We really need to get out. Please help us.”
Images show large parts of the refinery plant submerged. Some people posted that they were seeking refuge on the roof while they waited to be airlifted to safety.
Sapref, SA’s largest crude oil refinery, is midway through a shutdown. Petroleum companies Shell and BP announced they would pause operations in Durban by the end of March while they tried to find a buyer.
A source with knowledge of operations said the flooding would not affect fuel supply as it was being imported.
Sapref’s sustainable development manager, Hlengiwe Hlela, said the refinery was flooded during the torrential rain in KwaZulu-Natal.
“Employees have managed to evacuate the buildings to higher ground. No injuries have been reported. The emergency response team is busy with a rescue mission and they are being airlifted to safety. Updates will be shared once we have more information,” said Hlela.
Workers at paper and packaging manufacturer Mondi, located in flood-ravaged Merebank, a few kilometres from Sapref, were also evacuated.
Desmond D’Sa, of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance, said: “Both Mondi and Sapref are totally flooded. The canal near Mondi is bursting its bank.”
TimesLIVE
***
https://southlandssun.co.za/182699/severe-flooding-in-durban-south-areas/
Severe flooding in Durban South areas
All routes leading out of the Bluff are closed due to flooding. Residents are urged to remain indoors until the weather clears and roads are opened.
Angelique Janse van Vuuren 1 minute read
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The Coedmore Road bridge is submerged under flood water.
AREAS in and around Durban South have been affected by the severe downpour. Edwin Swales is completely flooded and impassable. Bayhead is submerged under water with trucks turning around.
South Coast Road towards Hullets is a no-go area. Tara Road and Quality Street is closed off due to flooding. Tara Road all the way up to Beach Road in Bluff is water logged. Mondi Road is completely submerged by the canal.
The Coedmore Road bridge is completely submerged and impassable. There are lots of debris and fallen trees on roads across the city.
Officials are urging residents to remain indoors and stay off the roads so as to allow for emergency services to access patients.
On 4/12/2022 8:52 AM, Patrick Bond wrote:
(Damn. Last year I wrote this, and apparently it's ever more valid, each passing storm season:
|
On 3/25/2021 3:50 PM, Patrick Bond wrote: (Two different views: 1. [a DA councilor] said the city had promised numerous interventions assessing all flood-prone areas. The engineering unit was also meant to conduct an assessment of all affected roads and the drainage capacity of the stormwater system. “We have not seen any of this manifest, nor any move by the city to fast-track maintenance or preventive maintenance whatsoever.” 2. academics studying Durban's resilience strategy consistently rate it as fabulous in numerous peer-reviewed papers, as you see here, and, in just one recent example from the journal Human Geography, "Durban, or its administrative entity eThekwini Municipality, is globally recognized for its innovative and progressive efforts towards being a more sustainable and climate resilient city (Sutherland et al., 2018). The city’s approach to sustainability recognizes the relations between social transformation, poverty alleviation and environmental management (Sutherland et al., 2018; Roberts et al., 2012)." Who do you believe?) |
The rain bomb in Durban - which finally appears to be softening - was nowhere near the force of the one that dropped 168 mm in South Durban on April 23, 2019: "Durban recorded 91 mm of rain in 24 hours to 11 April 2022."
Yet preventable damage - blocked or inadequate stormwater drains, sewage pump failures, tougher terracing, better-built housing and business structures, etc - suggest no one at City Hall is learning. Some reports in a box below, from my favourite 'hood of South Durban, confirm that a very rapid detox of the petrochemical facility is urgently needed, given how many poisons are now spreading through the massively flooded terrain there. I gather the now-cloesd SAPREF refinery is suffering from collapse of at least two of their massive storage tanks. Both SAPREF and Engen want to use the former refineries for oil storage, while SDCEA says No!, turn these into brownfield Just Transition pilot sites!
Up the coastline, "some areas in northern KZN received more than 200mm of rain yesterday.")
DEADLY DELUGE
Two dead, three missing as heavy rains lash KZN
· The Mercury
· 12 Apr 2022
· YOGASHEN PILLAY yogashe...@inl.co.za
AT LEAST two people were killed and three people are missing as heavy rains left a trail of destruction across KwaZulu-Natal.
Several areas, including eManzimtoti, were flooded due to the torrential rain on Sunday and yesterday.
The eThekwini Municipality said two people had died – one in KwaMashu’s ward 47, and the other in uMlazi’s ward 87.
Robert Mckenzie, KZN Emergency Medical Services’ spokesperson, said a 22-year-old man was killed after a wall fell on him in KwaMashu yesterday.
Paul Herbst, a spokesperson for Medi Response paramedics, said that a landslide had occurred in uMlazi on Sunday, engulfing an informal dwelling, and the occupant was killed.
In KwaDukuza yesterday, a woman was washed off a low-level bridge as she tried to cross the Nonoti River. IPSS Medical Rescue spokesperson Dylan Meyrick said members of the Search and Rescue Unit were dispatched to the scene, but had been unable to search the river due to the flooding.
Authorities also said that two people were missing after their car was swept away in Molweni.
Andre Beetge, a ward councillor in ward 97 in eManzimtoti, said that the heavy rains had caused the Illovo and Winklespruit Rivers to burst their banks.
“The eManzimtoti CBD was flooded as rain came down in buckets. Barrier walls have collapsed, and some rural houses have also collapsed.”
Beetge added that an embankment collapsed at Longacres Drive, Kingsburgh, near a block of flats.
“Large parts of eManzimtoti are without power due to wet weather, but unfortunately there isn’t anything that can be done as workers can’t work in the heavy rain.
“The sewage pump station in Riverside Road has also been affected. It is too early to even assess the damage.”
Andreas Mathios from Marshall Security said their emergency dispatch centre had received reports of mass mudslides in and around the eMdloti area.
“We went to investigate and found that a mudslide from a nearby construction site had washed across Belmont Road and caused damage to the residential premises in the area. A motorist who was travelling on Belmont Road was caught by the surprise mudslide, which suddenly came out of nowhere. She said that she had to climb out of the window, together with her child and domestic worker. The resident then notified her husband, and first responders arrived on scene a short while later to assist. Even a 4x4 vehicle was unable to get the vehicle out.”
Mark Gounder, an Isipingo community activist, said the damage had been vast in the area.
“Most damage to Lotus Park appears to be in the Pelican Drive, Isipingo, area. This has been caused by the longterm issue of an overflowing reservoir, which has resulted in loose sand. The heavy rainfall has now led to the walls and embankments caving in, causing damage to numerous properties.”
The eThekwini Municipality said yesterday afternoon that its Disaster Management Unit was on high alert as the heavy rains had resulted in the flooding of some roads, and rising water levels.
“The water level in the river between Mega City in uMlazi and Lamontville is rising, and communities along this river are cautioned to relocate to a safer place. Rivers in Amaoti and Quarry Heights are also overflowing, and residents are advised to move to alternative accommodation.”
Stapleton Road in Pinetown had also been flooded, and motorists were encouraged to avoid it. The uMhlanga Urban Improvement Precinct said that the M4 northbound from Sibaya Drive to the M27 offramp to eMdloti had been closed in both directions due a mudslide.
Regarding the eManzimtoti flooding, the city said its Roads and Stormwater teams were in the area unblocking drains to minimise flooding.
The city said the heavy rain had also affected infrastructure, with several areas experiencing power outages.
KwaZulu-Natal Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC Sipho Hlomuka said that mudslides had been reported in KwaDukuza, while there had also been flooding in the Ladysmith CBD, and road damage on the South Coast. “Road diversions are being implemented where possible. Local disaster management teams continue to monitor high-risk areas across the province. Residents who experience any incidents can contact their respective ward councillor or local municipality.”
Meanwhile, Umgeni Water said it had taken a decision to release water from the Hazelmere Dam in the north of Durban as torrential rains had pushed the level of the dam beyond 65%.
The utility said the water level in the dam posed a risk to the wall extension that was under construction.
“The first release will begin on Tuesday, April 12 (today), and will continue until 53% is reached.”
Umgeni Water said communities living close to or on the banks of the Umdloti River should be aware that once the water was released, the level of the river would rise rapidly.
***
On 3/25/2021 3:50 PM, Patrick Bond wrote:
(Two different views:
1. [a DA councilor] said the city had promised numerous interventions assessing all flood-prone areas. The engineering unit was also meant to conduct an assessment of all affected roads and the drainage capacity of the stormwater system. “We have not seen any of this manifest, nor any move by the city to fast-track maintenance or preventive maintenance whatsoever.”
2. academics studying Durban's resilience strategy consistently rate it as fabulous in numerous peer-reviewed papers, as you see here, and, in just one recent example from the journal Human Geography, "Durban, or its administrative entity eThekwini Municipality, is globally recognized for its innovative and progressive efforts towards being a more sustainable and climate resilient city (Sutherland et al., 2018). The city’s approach to sustainability recognizes the relations between social transformation, poverty alleviation and environmental management (Sutherland et al., 2018; Roberts et al., 2012)."
Who do you believe?)
City’s storm readiness questioned
· The Mercury
· 25 Mar 2021
· THAMI MAGUBANE
THE eThekwini Municipality has been warned to put in place plans for bad weather and storms that have in the past battered the city, causing extensive damage to infrastructure and, in some cases, the loss of life.
The city’s Audit Committee raised concerns about the city’s preparedness, warning that due to climate change, weather patterns had been disrupted and storms were becoming more severe.
The chairperson of the committee, Nala Mhlongo, tabled his report before members of the executive committee on Tuesday.
However mayor Mxolisi Kaunda called for the contents of the report “not to be ventilated” until such time that the municipal management team had a chance to formulate responses to the matters raised by the audit committee, in the interest of balanced reporting.
“In the past couple of years, the eThekwini area has been gravely affected by the heavy rains and storms that occur during the rainy season. These heavy rains cause damage to infrastructure and disruptions to the system,” said the report.
“The municipality must review the capacity of stormwater infrastructure, and address the drainage system within the municipal area.
“With the threat of climate change that has changed weather patterns drastically, the municipality has not reviewed its guidelines to accommodate these eminent weather changes. As climate change worsens, dangerous weather events are becoming more frequent or severe,” it said.
It said the engineering department had to implement an aggressive plan to address the issue of clogged stormwater infrastructure, as poor drainage could lead to flooding resulting in property loss and people being forced to move to escape flooding.
“Flooding may also damage water supply infrastructure and contaminate domestic water sources,” it said. The committee called for the city to see that their maintenance plan addressed the challenges in the high-risk areas.
DA councillor Yogis Govender said for years the party had questioned the eThekwini Municipality’s ability to respond to natural disasters.
“Freak storms leave a trail of destruction, injure people, some lose their lives and hundreds are displaced. In 2019, in one such storm, the cost of damage to infrastructure was estimated at R50 million.”
Govender said the city had promised numerous interventions assessing all flood-prone areas. The engineering unit was also meant to conduct an assessment of all affected roads and the drainage capacity of the stormwater system.
“We have not seen any of this manifest, nor any move by the city to fast-track maintenance or preventive maintenance whatsoever,” she said.
IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi said he had long advocated a proactive approach in dealing with issues of climate change.
“I even said that we should not be afraid to move the people who have built houses on river banks, as those are the first people that give problems when there is a flood.”
Nkosi said under normal circumstances a matter raised by the audit committee should be attended to quickly, “but the municipality does not take the recommendations made by the committee and follow up on them. We wait until there is a problem that will cost a small fortune to fix”.
Municipal spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela said eThekwini was one of many cities around the world impacted negatively by climate change.
He said the unprecedented movement of people into the city and the illegal dumping of waste into stormwater drains were among the issues contributing to the pressure on the city’s infrastructure.
He said as the summer season approached, the city had embarked on an aggressive campaign to ensure that stormwater drains were free of litter.
“We also have incidents where people build on floodplains. This has proven to be a recipe for a disaster during the summer season.
“While we have a unit that deals with land invasions, we also have educational programmes to educate the public about the dangers of invading land,” he said.
***
Google scholar search of "durban" and "resilience":
Prioritizing climate change adaptation and local level resilience in Durban, South Africa
D Roberts - Environment and Urbanization, 2010 - journals.sagepub.com
… Debra Roberts and Isabelle Anguelovski (2009), “Planning climate resilient cities: early … Adapted
from Environmental Planning and Climate Protection Department, eThekwini Municipality …
PRIORITIZING CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION AND LOCAL LEVEL RESILIENCE 399 …
Cited by 202 Related articles All 7 versions
JS Ortell-Pierce - 2011 - ukzn-dspace.ukzn.ac.za
This study investigated the relationship between resilience and coping in a sample of 120
unemployed women living in the Ethekwini region. Participants completed two instruments:
the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC)(Connor & Davidson, 2003) and Ways of …
Cited by 2 Related articles All 3 versions
Durban's 100 resilient cities journey: Governing resilience from within
D Roberts, J Douwes… - Environment and …, 2020 - journals.sagepub.com
… Download article citation data for: Durban's 100 Resilient Cities journey: governing resilience
from within. Debra Roberts, Joanne Douwes, Catherine Sutherland, and Vicky Sim. Environment
and Urbanization 0 10.1177/0956247820946555. Download Citation …
C Sutherland, D Roberts, J Douwes - Human Geography, 2019 - journals.sagepub.com
… Planning and Climate Protection Department (EPCPD)1 in collaboration with the eThekwini Water
and Sanitation Unit (EWS). Durban was selected as one of 100RC's first thirty-two resilient cities,
and so began its journey of developing its Resilience Strategy through the efforts …
Cited by 6 Related articles All 2 versions
Pushing the boundaries–urban edge challenges in eThekwini Municipality
V Sim, C Sutherland, D Scott - South African Geographical Journal, 2016 - Taylor & Francis
… of the four regional Spatial Development Plan maps included in the report (eThekwini Municipality,
2013 … in the management and spatial planning of the city, notably the resilience discourse which …
that the discourse coalition of 'efficient service delivery' and 'the resilient city' now …
Cited by 23 Related articles All 3 versions
Water and sanitation provision in eThekwini Municipality: a spatially differentiated approach
C Sutherland, M Hordijk, B Lewis… - Environment and …, 2014 - journals.sagepub.com
… Download article citation data for: Water and sanitation provision in eThekwini Municipality: a
spatially differentiated approach. Catherine Sutherland, Michaela Hordijk, Bonang Lewis, Claudia
Meyer, and Sibongile Buthelezi. Environment and Urbanization 2014 26:2, 469-488 …
Cited by 40 Related articles All 5 versions
J Douwes - 2018 - ukzn-dspace.ukzn.ac.za
… ETA EThekwini Transport Authority EU Engineering Unit EWS EThekwini Water and … Manager
SDG Sustainable Development Goal SRCI Sustainable and Resilient City Initiatives … Scholars
have identified resilience, adaptation, transition and transformation as critical moments …
Cited by 3 Related articles All 2 versions
S Hellberg - Geoforum, 2014 - Elsevier
… Share. Export. Advanced. Elsevier. Geoforum. Volume 56, September 2014, Pages
226-236. Geoforum. Water, life and politics: Exploring the contested case of eThekwini
municipality through a governmentality lens … 3.2. eThekwini municipality …
Cited by 53 Related articles All 5 versions
[PDF] Building resilience
D Dodman, J Ayers, S Huq - State of the World, 2009 - unisdr.org
… decisionmaking, which is typically focused on economic opportunities rather than climate-related
risk, results in “mal- adaptive” practices.24 All of this requires adaptive institutions— rural
institutions that encourage and facilitate resilience and that are themselves resilient in the …
Cited by 66 Related articles All 4 versions
P Aldunce, R Beilin, J Handmer… - Disaster Prevention and …, 2014 - emerald.com
… self-reliance has been pointed out as another characteristic of being resilient, interpreted as … you
have ability to – to help one another, because I believe resiliency, while it is … community
engagement and understanding is stressed as central for building resilience (Gunderson and …
Cited by 145 Related articles All 14 versions
Related searches
On 3/24/2021 7:27 AM, Patrick Bond wrote:
(For 18 months, from October 2017, “Gumede and Mthembu enabled large numbers of ANC ward councillors, ward committee members, members of business forums and organisations like the MKMVA and Amadelangokubona, to benefit financially from the new DSW contract, thus increasing the possibility of being favourably regarded in the political arena by these beneficiaries because of the continued benefit that they received”.
At the very same time, the idiots at WWF gave Gumede a major award in San Francisco:
Durban emerged as the strongest competitor from South Africa with its well-rounded approach regarding energy consumption targets and actions. Receiving the award, Mayor Zandile Gumede said, “We are excited about winning this prestigious award, clearly, whatever we have been doing as the city is working and it is getting international recognition. eThekwini Municipality has been a leader in climate action and continues to combine ambitious targets and focused action with community development initiatives,” continued Gumede.
The link to Durban Solid Waste is very important, because this agency is the main site for eThekwini officials to huckster their climate credentials via carbon markets, as discussed in this brief lecture about Sajida Khan's struggle against DSW and emissions trading. And four years before Gumede got the award, the city was bust in yet another WWF climate award scam, which I reported on in Daily Maverick below:
The 2013 Manase Report into widespread Durban mismanagement and corruption was so ineffectual in halting the rot that one of the most brazen scams – an attempted R3 billion hijack of the Bisasar Road incineration tender by former (1996-2011) mayor Obed Mlaba (using his daughter as a front) – resulted in Mlaba’s redeployment from dirty Durban politics. He’s now SA’s High Commissioner in London, where, with Business Day’s brazen encouragement, Mlaba may well learn how to commit fraud on a slightly grander scale just down the road from Trafalgar Square, amongst filthy financiers in the City of London. Going full-circle, Carver Media and municipal officials are using that very Bisasar Road dump’s six methane-to-energy turbines to claim – at WWF’s www.welovecities.org Durban portal – that because our municipality benefits from (a rather meagre) “7.5MWh of electricity produced from landfill waste, Durban is right to be proud of its renewable energy achievements.” No, in reality, Bisasar Road is notorious in part because it is Africa’s largest formal landfill and was dumped upon an Indian and Coloured neighbourhood (Clare Estate) by white Apartheid officials in 1980. ANC promises in 1994 to close the racist dump were never kept. Instead, in 2002, Sutcliffe went to the World Bank to turn it into a climate financing pilot. It is a multifaceted disaster, not least in terms of climate policy. The crucial problem concerns the way in which financing for the project was arranged. It required the World Bank and United Nations to take seriously a claim originally made by Sutcliffe and Durban Solid Waste: the cost of the project was “additional” to what the city would have done anyway. That qualified it for subsidies as a “Clean Development Mechanism” (CDM). The problem was, as city official John Parkin conceded in a recorded media interview during the COP17 climate summit here, that claim was a lie. As Parkin put it, “We already started the project and we were going ahead no matter what. So whether CDM became a reality or not, the project was going to go ahead.” This should have disqualified the project, had the Bank and UN officials been even slightly awake – but instead they were desperate for a South African renewable CDM pilot during the Joburg World Summit on Sustainable Development back in 2002.
Sure, Gumede appears absolutely corrupt, but the shame should certainly extend to WWF and its carbon trading fantasies.)
State details ‘looting plot’
Indictment alleges how Gumede and co-accused used DSW contract to siphon off millions of rand
· The Mercury
· 24 Mar 2021
· VERNON MCHUNU vernon...@inl.co.za
(ANA) African News AgencyFORMER ANC eThekwini region chairperson and eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede appeared in the Durban Commercial Crimes Court yesterday accompanied by several of her supporters, including traditional healers who sang praise songs for her outside court. Gumede, along with her co-accused, is facing a raft of charges related to a DSW tender scandal. | DOCTOR NGCOBO
***
https://www.iol.co.za/mercury/news/durban-wins-one-planet-city-challenge-award-17095372
Durban wins One Planet City Challenge award
The Mercury
Sep 17, 2018
Durban - Durban continues to rack up awards, this time the city walked away with an international award from the World Wide Fund’s (WWF) 2018 One Planet City Challenge which was announced last week in San Francisco, California.
eThekwini Municipality was named as a national winner in the African category and competed with 132 cities from 23 countries around the world.
Durban emerged as the strongest competitor from South Africa with its well-rounded approach regarding energy consumption targets and actions.
Receiving the award, Mayor Zandile Gumede said, “We are excited about winning this prestigious award, clearly, whatever we have been doing as the city is working and it is getting international recognition.”
“eThekwini Municipality has been a leader in climate action and continues to combine ambitious targets and focused action with community development initiatives,” continued Gumede.
Durban has made strong progress in improving sustainable mobility by building a spacious cycling network. The jury acknowledged eThekwini’s efforts towards sustainability to be particularly impressive, given the small size yet high population of the city.
Mayor Gumede, also Vice President for c40 Cities, was speaking on the sides of the Global Climate Action Summit held in San Francisco where she joined international community leaders engaging on issues of climate change.
Durban recently won a green award from national department of environmental affairs and urban greening from national department of agriculture.
The Swedish City of Uppsala was named global winner of WWF’s 2018 One Planet City Challenge.
Jakarta and Indonesia was given a special mention for its work in the We Love Cities campaign, which supports participants of the One Planet City Challenge, through citizen engagement.
***
Daily Maverick
Patrick Bond • 28 March 2014
Durban’s greenwashing deceits
Working frenetically from nouveau-riche Umhlanga, the Carver Media company just made themselves a lead candidate for the fiercest anti-marketing case method example you’d ever encounter at Wits Business School, a Mad Men’s nightmare script of a brand gone bust. The firm’s Praneetha and Avilash Aniruth committed the most crass social media mistakes imaginable in the course of high-priced, last-minute sock-puppetry, all aimed at advancing Durban’s bid for an utterly banal environmental prize.
The World Wide Fund for Nature’s (WWF’s) urban environmental competition, “We Love Cities,” announced its world champ yesterday, city of Cape Town (congratulations, Mother City!) but how could the WWF – itself a regular companion of unethical capital (a.k.a. “bears feeding on toxic waste” or other less pleasant references) – not already have disqualified Durban? The rampant ballot-stuffing by Carver Media’s fake Twitter accounts, with pseudonyms like “Brittaney Jones” and “Alanna Sharon,” left a dumbstruck WWF only committed to painstakingly disqualifying particular votes from those accounts they determine to be bogus – as usual, unable to connect the dots of repetitive malevolent behaviour back to the power structure.
The jejune Carver Media operatives left their fingerprints all over the corpse of the name Durban, wrecking its latest silly brand strategy, greenwashing our city’s awful climate record, and in the process smearing the WWF contest – and yes, compelling the question, which other urban entrepreneurs in the 33 competing cities used similar scam operations? Praneetha Aniruth’s first line of defence was, after all, that she was the victim of a “third force smear campaign” by competitors to discredit Durban’s valiant efforts – a plausible fib soon unveiled by Mercury journalists and allied geeks who tracked the offending Tweeter and IP addresses back to Umhlanga.
Carver Media’s staff apparently signed a lucrative last-minute municipal consultancy through an irregular process, Durban’s notorious “Section 36” fast-track contracts-for-the-lads. This was the no-competition bidding technique that brought former city manager Mike Sutcliffe infamy during his 2002-11 reign, and yet which were abused even more after 2012 to benefit the likes of Carver Media. The firm made up twitter fake accounts – even stealing online photos of people across the world – so that Twitter and FB would ring with the sounds of applause for Durban’s environment record.
Social media expert Vee Govender – who works for the brics-from-below project at our Centre – gave this advice: “The city should cancel its contract with Carver Media immediately. Paying Carver R500K for ten days work is unacceptable and R3 million for the #ilovedurban brand goes beyond being ridiculous. The City should ask for a full refund for any payments made. These guys have had to have insiders to set up the deal.” The Democratic Alliance’s local caucus leader, Zwakele Mncwango, claims he knows which family-related insiders Carver relied upon, based within eThekwini’s economic development and governance cluster.
Just this sort of rancid tenderpreneurship has reached epidemic stage. The 2013 Manase Report into widespread Durban mismanagement and corruption was so ineffectual in halting the rot that one of the most brazen scams – an attempted R3 billion hijack of the Bisasar Road incineration tender by former (1996-2011) mayor Obed Mlaba (using his daughter as a front) – resulted in Mlaba’s redeployment from dirty Durban politics. He’s now SA’s High Commissioner in London, where, with Business Day’s brazen encouragement, Mlaba may well learn how to commit fraud on a slightly grander scale just down the road from Trafalgar Square, amongst filthy financiers in the City of London.
Going full-circle, Carver Media and municipal officials are using that very Bisasar Road dump’s six methane-to-energy turbines to claim – at WWF’s www.welovecities.org Durban portal – that because our municipality benefits from (a rather meagre) “7.5MWh of electricity produced from landfill waste, Durban is right to be proud of its renewable energy achievements.”
No, in reality, Bisasar Road is notorious in part because it is Africa’s largest formal landfill and was dumped upon an Indian and Coloured neighbourhood (Clare Estate) by white Apartheid officials in 1980. ANC promises in 1994 to close the racist dump were never kept. Instead, in 2002, Sutcliffe went to the World Bank to turn it into a climate financing pilot. It is a multifaceted disaster, not least in terms of climate policy.
The crucial problem concerns the way in which financing for the project was arranged. It required the Bank and United Nations to take seriously a claim originally made by Sutcliffe and Durban Solid Waste: the cost of the project was “additional” to what the city would have done anyway. That qualified it for subsidies as a “Clean Development Mechanism” (CDM).
The problem was, as city official John Parkin conceded in a recorded media interview during the COP17 climate summit here, that claim was a lie. As Parkin put it, “We already started the project and we were going ahead no matter what. So whether CDM became a reality or not, the project was going to go ahead.” This should have disqualified the project, had the Bank and UN officials been even slightly awake – but instead they were desperate for a South African renewable CDM pilot during the Joburg World Summit on Sustainable Development back in 2002.
The Carver Media group had no role in the original lie. But its embellishment through #ilovedurban fakery gave the WWF all the excuse it needed to boot these hucksters out of their competition. The obvious reason for a full disqualification was Carver Media’s pathetic cheating, but a better one is rejecting Carver Media’s Clean Development Mechanism scamming. Instead, we all need to challenge local economic development officials to try out some low-carbon strategies.
That would push them to rethink the current carbon-addicted sports-tourism focus and South Durban petrochemical-port complex expansion that has already made Durban’s per capita emissions higher than even Beijing’s or London’s. (More details can be found in Durban’s Climate Gamble: Playing the Carbon Markets, Betting the Earth.)
Only then would Durban offer the basis for love by an environmentally-aware society that can see through not only the Twitter twits but municipal climate gimmickry as well. DM
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On 2019/05/20 12:18 PM, Patrick Bond wrote:
(The 'strategy' is attached; and it's excellent timing, because in and around Durban, more than 70 people lost their lives a month ago - most on Easter Monday - mainly due to overflowing rivers, inadequate housing that collapsed under 168 mm/day rain, fast-opening gullies rife with erosion caused by systematic urban land mismanagement, and dysfunctional storm-water drainage.
So what does the the attached strategy say about these factors, which adversely affect low-income black people the most? And on the positive side, what does the strategy add to a Million Climate Jobs campaign - an SA Green New Deal - to retrofit our appallingly-weak built environment so as to withstand extreme storms like the Durban Easter Rain Bomb? And as for funding the Loss & Damage costs, plus new expenses for adaptation and resilience-building, what does the strategy provide by way of clear financing lines, using "polluter-pays" argumentation, based on certain South Africans' extreme "climate debt"?
You guessed it: “ ”
Hence it is entirely appropriate that, as advertised, “The adaptation strategy has been developed in line with South Africa’s commitment to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change to introduce measures to adapt to the effects of climate change," because that 2015 Agreement - so proudly endorsed by the main Western polluters plus the BRICS - was best analysed by the world's leading climate scientist, James Hansen, with a one-word technical description: “Bullshit.”
What a shame that the Pretoria Regime utilised aid from the main German government aid agency, as you see way below, instead of turning to German activists, or more serious Bolivian climate experts, for example, when in need of technical support.
And as for Durban's green-washed adaptation record, it's no wonder that last September - when reports were already emerging about her impending arrest by the Hawks on multiple corruption and Durban Solid Waste procurement-scam charges - Mayor Zandile Gumede happily accepted a San Francisco climate summit's "One Planet City Challenge" award, one anointed by the easy-to-deceive WWF. Gumede proudly announced: “eThekwini Municipality has been a leader in climate action and continues to combine ambitious targets and focused action with community development initiatives.”
Until she's fired in coming days, the corrupt Environment Minister Nomvula Mokonyane is due to host the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment, from 19-23 August in Joburg.
Send remarks to: smba...@environment.gov.za)