Recent weather-related tragedies have reminded South Africans, and indeed the rest of the world, how ill-prepared our cities are to deal with disasters largely driven by climate change.
If it’s not floods claiming the lives of 6 000 people, with hundreds more still missing and at least 43 000 internally displaced in Libya, it is the raging wildfires that have led to deaths of people and animals, destroying livelihoods across the globe, including Europe, North America and Australia.
Making matters worse is that these tragedies could have been avoided had the world acted sooner, instead of simply ignoring the early warning signs.
Take for example the recent Cape Town floods where four children died after being electrocuted at Klipfontein Mission Station, and another similar incident where four people were electrocuted in Covid-19 informal settlement near Mfuleni last week.
The floods affected about 16000 people, with just over 7000 informal structures either completely or partially destroyed. The financial cost to agriculture is expected to run to just under R2billion.
Recovering from the floods could take months, or even years.
The April 2022 floods in KwaZulu-Natal and parts of the Eastern Cape where 459 people lost their lives with 4 000 homes destroyed and 40 000 people left homeless, should have been a wake-up call for the government.
One can hardly blame the experts who have decried, and rightly so, the affected municipalities’ preparedness for such eventualities.
In a recent opinion piece published by this publication, Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation advocacy specialist Gugu Nonjinge argues: “We are witnessing the impacts of climate change now, not in the distant future, and our response should mirror this urgency.
By investing in extreme-weather preparedness, we are safeguarding lives and fortifying our infrastructure, bolstering economic resilience, and ensuring that the most vulnerable among us have the resources they need to withstand the challenges posed by extreme weather events.”
By failing to heed these calls, governments should essentially take the blame for such deaths.
Cape Times