Mthatha floods turn homes into graves

Daily Maverick

8 hours ago

The head of Gift of the Givers' search and rescue team, Ahmed Bham, says he has not for a long time seen devastation such as that caused by the Mthatha flood last week.
Debris, including beds, furniture and refrigerators, was swept out of homes and piled up to 30m high by floodwaters in Mthatha. But Gift of the Givers' Ahmed Bham said the worst was the elderly 'uncle', walking with a stick, who approached them while they were searching for bodies at the Mthatha dam.
'He was an old man, walking with the help of a walking stick,' Bham said. He came to us, very courteously. He said he could see we had found the body of a person. He said, 'Could you please just turn the body so he could see if it was one of his children,' Bham said. 'He had been walking for days to find his children.'
The head of Gift of the Givers' search and rescue team, Bham, is a veteran of disaster response. When nobody else wanted to go, he got into a plane to fetch South African students in Wuhan at the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic five years ago. He has been on the frontline, responding to some of the worst disasters in the world. But while working on the Mthatha Dam wall earlier this week, he was left without words when that elderly man approached him.
'This disaster,' Bham said on Monday, 'we have seen the devastation. Mthatha hasn't seen such a flood such as this. For me, it was very intense. The volume of water was much more than we usually see,' he said.
'Mthatha is flat, in a way – so at first we couldn't gauge the devastation,' he said.
Bham said the Gift of the Givers search and rescue team was asked to help the police and rescue medics from the Department of Health. They arrived in Mthatha on Thursday.
'By then, you know those who were alive would have been helped. We found a lot of bodies,' he said.
'Flash floods come and go, and as the water recedes, you find what the flood has left behind,' he said.
'This flood hit Mthatha at a very bad time, as people were on the road to travel. Schoolchildren were on their way to school,' he said. 'We found people drowned in their beds.'
'Many houses are built around the river as well,' he said
Bham said it was very difficult work for the rescuers. 'But South Africans always rally to pull together,' he said. He was full of praise for the police and the Department of Health search and rescue teams. 'I can only give compliments on how well this whole operation was organised,' he said.
'It was such a difficult operation. Community members would come to us and say: We are still looking for this one or that one. We encouraged them to report the people as missing first,' he said.
He said most of the bodies were found in the flood line. 'Some were not in a good condition, but families would be able to recognise them,' he said.
'The first day, we recovered bodies in the houses. People drowned in their beds,' he said. He said that by yesterday, as flood water receded, communities were trying to salvage what they could from the water.
'But we also found an eight-month-old baby. Still in a nappy. That was heartbreaking,' he said.
He said during aerial searches, he saw the flood debris, including refrigerators and beds, piled up to 30m high by the raging water. 'There are mattresses that got stuck high up in the trees.'
'The people didn't stand a chance,' he said. 'The force of that water was indeed like a dam had burst.'
He said he could understand that people believed social media rumours that the cause of the flood was that the sluices of the Efata Dam had been opened, or that the dam had somehow failed.
'Indeed, I myself also asked if there wasn't a dam that burst,' he said.
'I hope they can recover more bodies for the sake of closure,' Bham said.
Another terrible feature of the flood was the number of drowned animals and livestock.
'At Gift of the Givers, we also try to make sure that the animals are cared for,' he said. 'But we didn't have to be here, because they were all dead. So much livestock – goats, sheep and cows. All have drowned,' he said. 'Terrible, terrible.'
Bham left on Monday and said not all the missing children had been found.
'It was a very difficult rescue. The amount of rubble is terrible. Honestly, it looked like a tsunami had hit.
'But we take much solace in the spirit of South Africans. Those who are helping and those who are ready to rebuild,' he said.
'I love the Eastern Cape. I love working here. I was very impressed by every well-trained specialist from the provincial team who came to help us. They know exactly what they are doing. Once they cleared an area, you knew it was done well,' he said.
'I also want to say thank you to the rescue dogs and their handlers. The dogs are so eager to help and so happy when they find something. It lifted the spirits.'
Minister of Water and Sanitation Penny Majodina rejected rumours that a failed dam or the opening of sluices caused the devastation. She was backed up by the executive mayors Mesuli Ngqondwana of the OR Tambo Regional Municipality and Nyaniso Nelani of the King Sabata Dalindyebo Municipality.
Videos circulating on social media had claimed that the flood was the result of Mthatha Dam sluice gates being opened.
'Secondly, there is another video of an overflowing dam alleged to be that of Mthatha Dam, which is also not true as the said dam is more than 20km downstream of the Mthatha dam and/or affected communities,' Majodina said.
'The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), which owns and operates the Mthatha dam, can confirm that the dam does not have sluice gates, but designed spillways which automatically release water when it reaches its full capacity,' she said.
The mayors stressed that they had no jurisdiction over the dam.
Majodina said the DWS deployed dam safety engineers on Tuesday, 10 June 2025, to assess the situation. The DWS was able to determine that heavy inflows were experienced from the Cicira River tributary into the Mthatha River, downstream from the dam. This resulted in flooded riverbanks.
'Upon assessment by the Department's engineers, the gauge readings at the dam indicated that on 9 June 2025 at [4pm] the water levels at the dam were sitting at 99.8%, which was a slight decline from the 99.9% of the previous week. However, by midnight on the same day, the dam experienced a sudden inflow of water from the rains in the upstream catchment, which increased the stored water from 99.8%% to 102%, leading to the dam spilling. The outflow of water from the dam coincided with the heavy flows from Cicira River downstream.
'According to assessments, the upper reaches of the tributary also experienced flash flooding in saturated conditions, and this led to the Mthatha River overflowing its banks,' Majodina said.
According to a notice from the OR Tambo District Municipality, water will be fully restored to the area only by Wednesday.
The Eastern Cape government confirmed on Monday evening that the death toll for the floods in the two regions OR Tambo (in and around Mthatha) and Amatole (including Butterworth) now stood at 90. Of these, 83 had been positively identified, and 56 bodies had been released to families for funeral arrangements.
Several humanitarian organisations, including the Red Cross, Gift of the Givers, the Black Coffee Foundation and the El-Imaad Foundation are providing assistance to communities affected by the floods.
President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the stricken area late last week.
'There shouldn't be any floods during winter. In the Eastern Cape, we expect cold weather and snow during this season. However, the occurrence of floods highlights the severity of the climate change issue we are facing. The same flooding issues are also happening in KwaZulu-Natal,' he said.
Ramaphosa also praised the search and rescue teams, as did Police Minister Senzo Mchunu: 'We want to recognise you and thank you for your dedication, your bravery and your solidarity with the people,' said Mchunu.
'We know it is not necessarily a direct responsibility in terms of the police's mandate. But out of sheer realisation of the dire situation in which communities are, you did not hesitate to get involved there and then, even without waiting for someone to give instructions,' he said.
'To a large extent, this is what we expect from SAPS,' he said. 'To always be available to join forces with the people of South Africa in their hour of need. We appreciate that you went beyond the call of duty,' he said. DM