The government on Thursday shared an update to its social services response to the KwaZulu-Natal floods.
More than 400 people have been confirmed to have died after adverse weather hit parts of KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.
Ten days ago, the president announced a decision to declare a national state of disaster.
Now, Health Minister Joe Phaahla is leading a Social Protection, Community and Human Development Cluster briefing on the government’s response.
“This is really a very difficult situation which has befallen our people in those provinces, which has affected livelihoods and a lot of lives have been lost. Families have lost their loved ones and there is a lot of grief… we start work to convey our condolences to all of the families which have lost their loved ones,” said the minister.
Phaahla said comprehensive assessments had been conducted in communities to ensure households and individuals had access to aid and services.
“People have been provided, amongst others, with counselling services and food, other basic requirements such as mattresses and blankets.
Also, the teams have been working hard to provide psycho-social services in all these places. Social workers have already reached more than 16,000 people in this regard.”
He detailed how social services had been affected.
“In the case of KwaZulu-Natal from the SASSA point of view, there’s only one office which has been partially damaged, not completely. Our ministers in our cluster have been, over the last two weeks, visiting various parts especially of KwaZulu-Natal.”
Phaahla said the Social Development Department had been helping to provide immediate relief to victims, while women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities have been prioritized.
“And as such has been able to establish 98 shelters, where more than 8,400 people are housed, in community halls, religious facilities, other temporary structures within the community. The majority of the people are women, more than 4,000, children, over 1,700, and also older persons over 1,000,” Phaahla said.
He said more than 3,000 flood victims had already benefitted from the Social Relief of Distress Grant with almost R5 million distributed.
-EWN
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