National Disaster Management Centre head, Dr Mmaphaka Tau, has classified this week’s KwaZulu-Natal floods as a provincial disaster.

The classification, done in terms of Section 23 of the Disaster Management Act: Impact of Severe Weather Events, was gazetted on Wednesday.

Tau said the move came after having deliberations with sector Departments and the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Disaster Management Centre.

He said the disaster management centre also assessed the magnitude and severity of the impact of the severe weather events occurring in various municipal areas of the province. These have resulted in the loss of life and damage to property, infrastructure and the environment caused by heavy rain, flooding, strong winds and landslides.

The devastating floods had claimed over 300 lives by Thursday.

“The Disaster Management Act, Section 40 read with section 23(8), designates the primary responsibility to coordinate and manage this disaster, in terms of existing legislation and contingency arrangements to the provincial executive,” said the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs in a statement.

Accordingly, the Department urged all state organs to further strengthen support to existing structures to implement contingency arrangements and ensure that measures are put in place to enable the province to effectively deal with the effects of this disaster.

Source: South African Government News Agency