Floods cripple Ramotswa
Mbongeni Mguni | Wednesday March 16, 2016 18:00
Some of the affected areas included the Rural Administration Centre offices, which house the South East District (SED) sub council chamber, District Commissioner’s office and council offices. Also affected were some police and teachers’ houses and cemeteries. The Ramotswa border post was forced to close, while pupils at St Conrads Primary School were sent home as their school was flooded.
A Mmegi newscrew found learners and their teachers standing outside the school premises watching the floodwaters, which showed no signs of receding. The Roman Catholic Church, which is inside St Conrads, was equally affected with reports that some sisters were trapped inside.
At the depot, officers were forced to drain water from the area to protect the fuel tanks from damage. “We were not prepared for this disaster because there has not been any rain in a very long time,” said district commissioner, Ian Tema.
“Again metrological officers had not warned us about this rainfall. Our area has a poor storm water drainage system and that is why some residents and offices are affected.”
Tema told Mmegi that a thorough assessment was yet to be conducted.
“We are yet to assess the situation because it happened in the morning. My office does not have records of the number of residents affected, or offices and houses.
“We have dispatched delegations of four people per village because the floods have affected all SED villages such as Otse, Mogobane, Taung, Tlokweng and Ramotswa,” he said.
The district commissioner said the disaster management committee had not yet been approached for support for those affected.
“This is an emergency and we had to open one of the offices to assist those who are affected, including even our workers. Some of our employee’s houses are amongst those affected.
“We did not send some employees home, but rather we want them to help to clean because water has been drained from the offices. It cannot be work as usual because we all have to clean and check things that are affected,” he said.
The DC said if the delegations find extreme situations in some homes, affected families will be accommodated in tents in safe areas.
“We understand that more water is still coming because it rained a lot in Ntlhantlhe and in South Africa. Taung people might get affected again because Mogobane Dam is flooding. Our teams are going to work around the clock to monitor and assess the situation.”
Meanwhile, the Meteorological Services Department says 105 millimetres of rain fell in Ramotswa overnight on Tuesday, feeding the floods experienced there yesterday. At Ramotswa Police 91 millimetres were recorded, while Manyelanong near Otse recorded 71.8 and Mogobane 32 millimetres.
All the areas are part of Gaborone Dam’s catchment area. “We are looking at more rains, specifically from today (Wednesday) going towards Friday,” the department’s principal meteorologist, Radithupa Radithupa said.
“It will start decreasing by Friday. In the meantime, we are looking at a lot more.
“Within the catchment area, there will be a flow of water.
“We expect heavy rains across Kgalagadi, moving to Mahalapye and Francistown going forward.”