National disaster declared as heavy rains, floods wreck homes in Mpumalanga, Limpopo, KZN

By Johnathan Paoli

Government has declared a national disaster after severe weather and flooding continued to devastate parts of Limpopo, Mpumalanga, and KwaZulu-Natal this week.

At least 31 people were confirmed dead by Sunday — 20 in Mpumalanga and 11 in Limpopo — prompting the mobilisation of all three spheres of government under the National Disaster Management Centre to coordinate relief efforts and prioritise urgent infrastructure repairs.

On Saturday, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa convened an urgent Inter-Governmental Committee on Disaster to assess the impact of the floods and coordinate a national response.

“We need to reprioritise our budgets to intervene in these communities, so that life can get back to normal or even better than what it had been,” Hlabisa said.

In Mpumalanga, the full scale of destruction is still emerging, with preliminary damage estimates now exceeding R2 billion.

Persistent rainfall since mid-November has caused severe