Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Cape's bad weather displaces 20 000

The number of people displaced after heavy rains hammered the Cape Peninsula on Sunday has climbed to about 20,000.

The City of Cape Town has appealed to residents to donate generously to organisations providing relief to those worst affected by the storms.

Gallery: Cape Town Floods

The city's Disaster Risk Management department is mopping up areas affected by the rains and subsequent flooding. At least 63 informal settlements across Cape Town have been badly affected.

The department's Charlotte Powell said last night that the number of residents who were driven out of their waterlogged homes in informal settlements had climbed to 20,000.

She said with the "growing need for aid" the department was appealing to all Capetonians to donate to the NGOs proving relief.

The list of NGOs is HDI Support, 7 Transvaal Street, Paarden Island; Mustadafin Foundation, 18 Belgravia Road, Athlone; The Salvation Army, Western Cape Division, 85 Maynard Road, Wynberg; The SA Red Cross Society Western Cape, 21 Broad Road, Wynberg; The SA National Zakah Fund, 22 Cornflower Street, Bridgetown; and Masibambani, 323 Mongezi Road, Section C, Khayelitsha.

Meanwhile, the weather office has warned that cold and wet conditions were expected to persist.

Weather forecaster Carlton Fillis said while the rain was expected to clear by tonight very cold conditions were still expected to batter the Cape Peninsula for the next few days.

Although the wild weather has exacted a heavy human toll, there's a lighter side, too.

Some excited families from Cape Town took radio reports about snow lining the streets of Ceres very seriously yesterday, driving all the way to the little town only to discover it was not yet a white winter wonderland.

The Ceres Tourism Bureau said it had received more than 130 phone calls from people trying to confirm radio reports about snowfall in the town.

Most of them were directed to the Matroosberg Private Nature Reserve about 30 minutes outside of Ceres, because snow had fallen on the mountain ranges there since Sunday.

- Cape Argus

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