Imtiaz Sooliman – KZN Floods Gift of the Givers’ on the mobilization of aid for the affected

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.