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Some roads in Limpopo have been completely submerged.
The farming community of Stockpoort and Thabazimbi in the Limpopo province has been left stranded after many of their farms were flooded and their crops submerged.
The Stockpoort Border Post has been closed after floods left it inaccessible.
A game lodge near the Stockpoort border post is also partially flooded.
The co-owner of the lodge, Willem Du Toit, says they will assess the extent of damage when the water has subsided.
“About 60% of the lodge was underwater. Most of the pathways have turned into sludge. So, it’s difficult to walk around. Clean-up operations are going very slow. We may not be able to determine the damages for weeks. Luckily, no one has been injured or drowned.”
Meanwhile, the Minister of Agriculture, John Steenhuisen, said earlier that measures should be put in place to assist affected farmers in the area.
Steenhuisen has called on the Limpopo Agriculture Department to declare a state of disaster.
“The key part is to get electricity back up and running; those farms that still have crops and irrigation are able to irrigate. Secondly, we need to get roads up and running as quickly as possible so that those people are able to get their products to malls and markets but in a long term we have to look at how we mitigate and protect out farming areas from very clearly, effects of climate change that are starting to have a huge impact in agriculture. We are going to have to look at things like raising damn wall.”
Floods shut down two Limpopo border crossings
