- Masande Mgobo fled her flooded Khayelitsha RDP home and is staying with a relative, with no money to replace a damaged stove and fridge she depends on to survive.
- Updated figures show 83,184 people in 21,546 homes across Cape Town have been affected by this week’s storms, with NGOs and government agencies continuing relief efforts.
Masande Mgobo has lived in her RDP house in Khayelitsha for years. It has never flooded badly enough to make her leave. This week it did.
She grabbed her ID and important documents and got out. Her neighbours were in the same position, so there was nowhere to leave anything else. She went back once, to collect school clothes for her four children.
“I have never left my home because of floods,” she said. “I am now staying with a relative because I cannot access my house. It has water all over the place.”
What worries her most is not the water. It is what comes after. Mgobo does not work. She supports her family on two children’s grants. The stove and fridge the flood damaged are not things she can replace.
“I don’t have money. I don’t know how I am going to replace the damaged things,” she said.
She is waiting to find out when the water will be pumped out of her street. With tens of thousands of homes affected, she does not know how far down the list she is.
Ward 93 councillor Thando Pimpi said residents in her Khayelitsha ward had no choice but to move into a community hall while the water was cleared.
Updated figures from the City of Cape Town show 83,184 people in 21,546 homes across the city have now been affected. Several NGO partners including Gift of the Givers, Islamic Relief and Mustadafin have provided hot meals and blankets. Sassa and the Department of Social Development have also stepped in.
Relief efforts are continuing.
Pictured above: Heavy rains and gale-force winds battered Cape Town this week, leaving tens of thousands of residents unable to return to their homes.
Image source: Supplied
