Ramaphosa expresses heartbreak during Mthatha visit but satisfaction with disaster response
Ramaphosa also reacted with shock to the story of a young woman, Ongezwa Ntlabathi, who lost her three young boys and her mother in the tragedy.
Her mother and eldest son's bodies have not yet been recovered.
The young mother is based in Polokwane and had to rush back home after hearing the devastating news.
'So many of you are in a similar situation. We feel your pain.
'It is deeply saddening to lose your child or your parent.
'We are not used to losing so many people at one time, that is why I came to see for myself what happened,' Ramaphosa said.
He said he had received an extensive briefing from premier Oscar Mabuyane and praised the response from the three spheres of government in helping the victims and searching for those who were still missing.
'That to me demonstrates the capability of our government in responding to disasters like this.
'As the premier says, it could have been much worse than this.
'Obviously, we are disturbed that so many people passed away but it could have been much worse.
'The response teams acted quickly and I've also heard good reports about how the [state] mortuary forensic team has acted quickly to do autopsies to ensure [victims'] loved ones are able to receive their remains.'
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State services and institutions with a social function, such as health and education, can only be nurtured and defended if they are embedded in a shared sense of purpose. To recover a robust idea of the public — and thereby public services and institutions — we need to understand it as both virtue and entitlement. As entitlement, it means that everyone has the right to housing, clean water, good schools, healthcare, transport and public space. As virtue, the idea of the public demands a culture of stewardship, care and responsibility. We need to aspire to what the American activist and intellectual Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls 'life-affirming institutions', an infrastructure that prioritises care, enables flourishing and anchors people in the collective affirmation of dignity. Ultimately this requires a sense of politics as the creation of a shared world, a world where public services and institutions are not crumbling, corrupt or humiliating, but sources of shared belonging and dignity. 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