Imtiaz Sooliman – KZN Floods Gift of the Givers’ on the mobilization of aid for the affected
AI: Summary ©
The founder of Giving Gives discusses the upcoming flood relief in KZN, which is a series of deceptive actions that will not happen. The challenges faced by KZN include leaving homes, preventing damage from informal settlements, and avoiding leaving homes if the water levels are rising. The speakers provide practical advice on what to do when the water levels are rising and emphasize the importance of staying at home during the storm. They also discuss the use of helicopters and emergency services, but emphasize that they are ready for the worst. The use of helicopters and emergency services is not required for emergency relief efforts.
AI: Summary ©
So we're joined now by the founder of gift of the givers, Dr MTS
Suliman. You've just heard, hopefully, some of what the
premier has to say, the concerns that they have. How are you
rallying your forces? I know you've been in the thick of things
and trying to alleviate the destruction and pay me, people
have experienced during this
time Good evening, so it's very much of the same that we've done
all the time for any flood relief. Right now, we've been checking
well from yesterday, we've been getting feedback from our
geologist, Dr hinnovan, to check what kind of patterns to expect.
And of course, he said we're going to expect holiness rain in many
parts of KZN, especially on the north coast, cyclonic weather
coming from Gaborone. And whole from this afternoon, he's been
giving us feedback as to what will happen. The
water levels at the sea will rise substantially beyond three meters,
which means there will be a black flow into rivers, which means a
smaller rivers will become much big, and streams will become much
bigger. And the same emphasis that people shouldn't be on low lying
flood plains. And of course, the biggest preventative action that
anyone can take right now is not to be on the roads. You know,
there's a list of roads that are getting flooded on one side or the
other, but people don't understand that it is highly deceptive when
you see the water on the road, your thing is a slight movement,
but under and the undercurrents can be very, very strong, and
water can suddenly take your wheels and your bonded and move
your way. And it's very, very high risk. So it's better to be off the
roads altogether right now, there are some evacuations taking place
in Tonga, the place that has been badly affected in terms of no
water for the last four to five weeks, and already, right now,
people are being evacuated, especially pensioners from old age
homes and pension villages. That's evacuation, or that's taking place
right now in other areas, the storm waters are being blocked,
waters coming to the homes in clearwood and Manning Hill and
other places. But there's nothing life threatening. So far, there
are some nudge slides. Roads have been blocked. So in terms of life
threatening, except the people that have to move in Tonga, we
haven't had any other feedback. We are active. We are awake. We have
contacted all our networks on the ground, the networks that have
worked with us for the last four weeks in the flood relief for KZN,
and we waiting for information from them, all our teams on
standby, but they're not going to be able to do much right because
of the road situation going to be very difficult, but once
everything is settled, we will do exactly what we did the first
time. Now we will support all the centers. And you know, the heroes
are the people from the communities, the CPF, the security
companies, the orderly people, the community organizations, we will
give them the full support as we have been giving them for the last
four weeks, and we're just waiting for that feedback right now.
Emphasis again, stay off the roads, because there's going to be
the most important action right now. We haven't heard of any
broken buildings, any more schools getting damaged, any health
facilities getting damaged, but it's too early to say, so the
weather says server saying that in some stations, they've already
encountered an accumulation of over 200 millimeters of rain in
some places of the past 24 hours. And you're speaking about how
deceptive the rain may occur, especially if you're judging it
from the premise of what you're seeing on the road from past
experiences. Have you experienced any reluctance or just down round
obstinance in advising people to move from low lying areas or just
to safe a higher ground? That's
never gonna happen. It's never gonna happen. No, that's that's
that people you know, are very possessive of their possessions,
and people are afraid they will lose their positions. You know,
they it is not so much about moving away and taking the
precautions to move to high ground. Nobody ever does that, not
in South Africa, not in any other part of the world, especially
among Koro communities. Nobody ever does that. And people are if
you watch South Africa, even when there's fires, people don't move
away from the fireside. Fire can be raging. They'll sit there and
wait to make sure they get back into their house, you know, the
informal home, because that's everything that they own, and the
same would flood them. They will not move, and people will stay
there. And that's why you find that suddenly people get washed
away in huge numbers, because nobody wants to move to higher
ground. Nobody believes that the water level can rise so fast. If
you take tonkat Again, you know a place called sanfield, the only
one man I was speaking to said, luckily it was in the daytime. It
was half past five in towards the evening, and we said the water
level rose eight meters in 45 minutes. And he said, fortunately,
it was sort of daytime. We were awake. Had it been a few hours
later, we all would have been washed away. Now that's the same
thing that happens in and this is a built up homes. These are not
informal settlements. So informal settlements, if people take that
chance, can you imagine what that what will do? And I come back to
the.
Same story. If this water, a month ago, could take shipping
containers in prospecting and amongst them totally in that area,
well, the old Devon airport, and fling them on the bridges on the
road, what would it do to inform settlements? But unfortunately,
people are very worried about their positions, about the site.
They don't move to high ground, and when they try to do that, it's
just too late
if people who may be affected are within the reach of both both our
voices of you at the moment, practical advice. It's given
practical advice now on what to do, should you have concerns, or
how you can avoid imminent danger.
There's only two. Now, you know the one is, if it's the water
levels are rising, take your essential positions and get out of
your house. You know, you have to go to some higher ground. You have
to try to find a hall. But again, you know, we have good people in
all areas. But I said we, I don't mean gift for the givers. I mean
South Africans, South Africans who make halls available for open
schools, open churches, or fear for fellow being, if you address
don't wait, because that water level in that small stream is
going to become a raging river within minutes. Move away to high
ground as far as you can. Can move, you know, as quickly as
possible. Whether you in a built up area right now, the water
levels are rising, you know, and it looks like the road is going to
get cut away completely, and they were also affected in the last
floods, and we within the first time we were providing bottled
water for them. So they made, you know, calls that people take
important documents and move to higher ground. So that's the first
thing. Move to higher ground, wherever you are. If there you see
the water levels are rising, it will come up very fast. Don't have
a chance. It won't give you a chance. Especially, you know,
initially the hydrologist said it may be 20 millimeters per hour,
and then he went to 48 millimeters power. And now it's beyond 50
millimeters per hour. And it's probably even more than that. As
time is passing, the level, the rain levels are coming much
faster, and, you know, bigger volumes, and you're not going to
have much chance against that. And the second most practical thing is
what I said at the beginning, stay with the roads. Just stay over the
roads, because you don't know where the water levels will rise
and how quickly. And you know, everybody posts different areas
where roads are affected, and people may think it's only
confined to those areas, but within minutes, many more other
roads could be affected, and you could be a victim of that area.
It's just a far safer to stay at home till the rain stops, the
water levels drop and you know, and we can see at night, you can't
see anything. In the daytime, it's much greater to see what's taking
place. If you go back now to the old flats of you travel on the
roads now up till now, you realize this, the extent and the vastness
of the damage, which you actually didn't see in the first two weeks
and you see the amount of destruction on the side of the
roads, the houses that have collapsed, the landslides, the
mudslides, which you didn't see initially, it just becoming more
visible many weeks later. And we don't have the same process again,
where people are going to get washed away because they they
thought the water level was not too high. You don't see the
potholes, you don't see the ditches, you don't see the road
sunken in different areas, and you just drive into a disaster.
Dr suno, and obviously, no two crises are the same. They may have
areas of similarity, but do you feel that you're better equipped
now with, you know, the rescue and recovery efforts that you took
part in the last time to now. I mean, the weather service is
already just giving us a sense of the weather pattern, the low
cutoff where it's going to move, including the weather saying, for
instance, that the rain is going to move northwards tomorrow, even
though it'll still be at level 10. But you know, it's going to also
then move to kinkwechayo to until Monday morning. Does this help
you, essentially, in your planning? And can you use
experiences from the last operation to this to move faster,
more efficiently?
We can't move any faster than we already moved, to be honest. You
know? We our teams are always ready, you know. And we have them
on standby, but you have to be put in when you bring them in, it's no
point bringing them in too early, and it's no point bringing them
too late. When a desert there's an impending disaster. We are always
ready, you know. We prepare, hope for the best and prepare for the
worst. That's what we do. Our warehouses are stopped, our
vehicles are ready, our teams are, you know, on standby. But I always
tell my teams, your precaution, your safety, comes first before
you move. For anybody else, that's the standard role of gifts. And
right now, as I'm talking to you, have any feedback from all my
teams, what feedbacks they're getting from, from the different
parts of KZN, so to answer your question, there's any more
different we can do what from what we've done and what we always do.
We're doing this for 30 years. What we can do. Maybe this time
is, you know, we only realized a little later there wasn't enough
helicopters available by government in the last one to help
people get off the roads. If that's necessary tomorrow. And,
you know, and helicopters available, we shatter them. We'll
make helicopters available to the rescue personnel in the saps, in
canine in government. If helicopters are.
Acquired that part. You know, in the in the first floods of a month
ago, we only realized afterwards that there wasn't enough
helicopters, and we can charter them privately, and we can fund
it, and we can make it available. Other than that, there are diverse
there are rescue personnel, and we need to bring them again. We had
short notice. We can bring them from the rest of the country.
There's no issue for us in terms of expertise. Would you need
anything in addition to what you had the last time? Or were you
pretty much covered there as well? No,
we covered, you know, we fully, we have fully fledged teams in every
aspect. We actually were using our equipment to assist a disaster
center. We have all the equipment is at KZN. We brought it all from
Johannesburg. It stays now in our head office. We've got boats.
We've got, you know, all the types of chains, the source, everything
required for search, rescue and recovery, and we have the
personnel to do that in the different categories of rescue. So
that's not an issue. As I said, helicopters. We can get boats. We
can get four by fours. We can get we have people who work with us
for two way communication systems. And it's a matter of a couple of
hours driving from other parts of the country, coming to to Durban
or other parts of KZN, it's not an issue, you know, we are prepared.
This is, I mean, we've done much bigger disasters. We've gone into,
into earthquakes with 250,000 people have died in in 40 seconds
over the with the tremors, you know, we put in teams all we've
got specialized equipment to search for people under the
ground. So we have the equipment, we have the personnel, we have the
resources, we have the suppliers. The warehouses are full. We have
our own vehicles. We have a fleet of 65 vehicles. And we, of course,
most importantly, we have all the certificates in all the different
areas, the community police forums, the community members, the
civic organizations, the security services all available. And that's
why we can move so fast, you know, because they become our extension
in all the different areas. Dr Suman, thank you so much for your
time sharing with us your experiences the last time in which
you're getting geared up for much appreciated wishing you and your
team all the very best, founder of gift of the givers. Dr intia
Suleiman, and just to give you a sense of what the weather service
is warning and what people have experiences, just in talking of
the danger to life, talking about the fast flowing streams, speaking
to a resident earlier on, he was saying, if you could just imagine
a stream, the force of it bubbling under. It's almost like rocks are
jumping. So this is the force of it, speaking about widespread
displacement of affected communities. This is what
President et al saw for the last time, and unfortunately, fearing
that widespread mudslides and rock falls, soil erosion, widespread
damage to property, as you heard, that hasn't been reported as yet,
but the loss of livelihood, people are fearing livestock being
drowned or swept away. So sometimes this is also some of the
reasons why people are reluctant to move major roads and bridges
the face the danger of damage. Some of them, the major arterial
moves have already either lanes are closed because of flooding,
and we haven't heard anything as yet about bridges, but we will
keep you up to speed. You're watching the globe here on sabc
news. Child, don't go away. You.