Learners from parts of Kraaipan in the North West were unable to go to school on Monday morning after bridges leading from their village were either flooded or washed away. Heavy rain has fallen in the area in the past few weeks, turning a normally dry river into a raging torrent.
Officials from the Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality visited the area to assess the damage. Kraaipan and Mareetsane are some of the areas severely affected by the heavy rains.
Two of the three bridges connecting the area have been washed away, while the third is completely submerged and damage will only be determined later.
Residents are now unable to get transport into towns in the area, and children cannot go to school.
“Our kids attend school on the other side of the river. They use this bridge, even transport is on the side. This has impacted us negatively,” says one of the residents.
Another resident says, “We urge the government to fix this bridge urgently. This is an emergency.”
Ngaka Modiri Molema District Mayor, Khumalo Molefe, says they will take immediate action.
“If people can’t access schools, they can’t access shops, they can’t access health facilities, it’s a clear sign of high risk that we must mitigate against. We have brought here, the provincial disaster management team so that together we can do an assessment. We will be meeting now to coordinate our immediate intervention.”
The government task team says they will also look into the reason why the bridges are in such a poor state.
“What I saw in Mareetsane, the road is new, but the bridge remains very old. I would want to go back and look at the specification there. My suspicion tells me that you can’t construct such a new road and ignore an old and dilapidated bridge. When you look at the quality of the road, it’s not that bad, but the quality of that bridge does not correlate with the quality of the road,” Molefe elaborates.
Residents have urged the government to speed up repairs to the damaged bridges and roads.
The Eastern Cape has also been experiencing floods:
