WATCH: More weather warnings amid flooded rivers and roads
South Africans are in for a very wet weekend after the South African Weather Service had issued alerts throughout the week for severe weather conditions across the country.
There were already rescue operations on Friday morning amidst the heavy rain that fell through the night and is expected through the day.
The Weather Service issued more warnings for Friday:
“Orange Level 5 Warning for Disruptive Rainfall leading to flooding of roads and settlements(formal and informal), danger to life(fast flowing streams/deep water), displacement of affected communities, damage to property, infrastructure, loss of livelihood and livestock, major disruption of traffic flow due to major roads being flooded or closed, possible damage to roads and bridges expected over the southern escarpment of the Eastern Cape, central and eastern parts of KwaZulu-Natal, Lowveld and escarpment of Mpumalanga as well as the eastern and northern parts of Limpopo province.
"Yellow Level 2 Warning for Severe Thunderstorms leading to localised flooding of susceptible formal/informal settlements or roads, low lying areas and bridges, major roads affected but can be used, increase travel times, difficult driving conditions on dirt roads, minor motor vehicle accidents due to slippery roads expected in places over the central and north-eastern parts of the Eastern Cape, central and eastern parts of the Free state, Gauteng, Highveld of Mpumalanga, western and southern parts of Limpopo as well as the extreme eastern and north-eastern parts of the North-West.”
Tshwane emergency services spokesperson Charles Mabaso says one person had been swept away by the Apies River on Thursday afternoon, after another body was swept by the river last week Friday.
“Yesterday (Thursday) afternoon we received a call that some people were swept by the Apies River. Upon arrival on scene the emergency services were told that some had managed to escape but one person was again swept by water.
"The search continued until late Thursday evening due to poor visibility and high waters, the search was then called off, the emergency services will join the South African Police Services which are leading the search today (Friday) to continue to search for the body that was swept.”
Various routes, rivers, streams have also already flooded in parts of Mpumalanga and Limpopo.
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In Johannesburg, emergency services spokesperson Robert Mulaudzi says no incidents had been reported, although they remain on high alert.
“We have not yet received any major incidents especially in our vulnerable communities throughout the City of Johannesburg. we still have our disaster and management monitoring team throughout the city, we have not yet any situation where we had to evacuate people or attend to any major incident due to these wet weather conditions.
"However we are still remaining on high alert due to these wet weather conditions throughout the weekend to make sure that if there are any incidents we can respond quickly.”
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