Three people have died and an estimated 85 villages are affected after severe flooding swept through the Northern Cape, causing hundreds of millions of rand in damage and leaving approximately 13,000 learners stranded.
The John Taolo Gaetsewe (JTG) district municipality—encompassing the Kuruman area—and the Frances Baard district were the hardest hit. The province, along with several others, has since been declared a national disaster area.
Infrastructure damage includes 26 bridges and 26 schools that have been forced to close. The agricultural sector has also suffered significant losses, with livestock deaths reported in the Kuruman area and an interruption to the foot-and-mouth disease vaccination programme.
Sehularo Sehularo, from the Saamtrek-Saamwerk agriculture union, explained the extent of the damage to farmers.
“The flood really caused some farmers to lose especially in the JTG area,” Sehularo said. “Farmers couldn’t go to their farming areas, roads were bad, grazing became a challenge for their animals. Those who are planting vegetables, it became a real challenge because water was locked in their gardens. Those who were supposed to harvest mealies—water was also on their fields. I don’t think they are going to get enough yields.”
Regarding the foot-and-mouth outbreak in the Frances Baard area, Sehularo commended the department for acting swiftly to vaccinate animals in places such as Roodepan and Magareng. He noted that a suspected case has now been reported in the Barkly West area, and he expects the department to activate animal health technicians there.
Asked whether the vaccination programme has restarted in the JTG area—where it had been halted because workers could not reach animals—Sehularo said he believes it will start sometime next week. He added that because JTG is vast and “everybody in JTG is a farmer,” the risk of disease spread is high.
“Foot-and-mouth disease spreads very easily when you drive into somebody’s farming operation,” Sehularo said. “Even as we stand here, maybe we are carriers.”
Despite the devastation, the flooding has brought rare sights to the Kalahari. The Kuruman River—notorious for being a dry riverbed—flooded for the first time in more than a decade. The Augrabies Falls are also in flood, drawing visitors to the Northern Cape.
“So a lot of devastation, but also some beautiful news for the people of the Kalahari and the people of the national park,” the report noted.