The persistent heavy rains have hit hard low lying areas of Lwandle and surrounding areas.
Some streets have been heavily flooded while people’s shacks in areas such as New Village and Pholile A informal settlement are waterlogged.
The heavy rains have hit hard in Cape Town since Sunday morning and the weather service predict it will continue until Saturday.
When City Vision visited New Village on Tuesday morning 14 June, residents in their gumboots and raincoats could be spotted mending some damage due to flooding. Some tried their best to keep water out of their homes, while others opened trenches to divert the water away from their shacks.
Nolubabalo Matiso (34) told City Vision they had no other option but to sleep in their shacks while they were flooded.
“We just could not do anything to keep the water away,” she said. “We can only hope for this to pass because as things stand we have nothing else to do. Every year we are always inflicted by this. It is very sad as there seems to be no solution”.
Mwezi Lugwali, a community leader from Pholile A, believes the only solution to the current situation is to have proper land to relocate people.
“We have people that have been staying here close to about 20 years and have been inflicted with such conditions. We slept with our shacks flooded because there is nothing else we can do,” he said.
“People are even reluctant to leave their shacks to be accommodated in community halls because amaphara take advantage of the situation,” said Lugwali.
Xolani Diniso, Ward 86 councillor, said the flooding has affected both formal and informal areas.
He blamed the matter on unblocked stormwater drains that have been reported and not fixed by the municipality.