Own Correspondents
HOEDSPRUIT: A woman with her child strapped to her back with a black refuse bag clung to a tree as raging flood waters swept by until a rescue team airlifted them to safety.
Two other adults were rescued with the mother and child from the tree on a citrus farm near the Blyde River.
They were among 135 people the air force and police rescue units plucked from life-threatening situations during the floods in Mpumalanga and Limpopo over the past two days.
Police used Casspirs to reach those who were trapped, often transporting them on the vehicles’ roofs because of the high waters.
Civilians used private helicopters and specialised off-road vehicles to rescue guests stranded at game lodges in and around the Kruger National Park.
The rescue of the mother and child left a flight engineer from Hoedspruit’s 19 Squadron seriously injured when he fractured his leg trying to rescue them.
The injury forced the pilot of the Oryx helicopter to abandon the rescue and winch the injured sergeant-major aboard and fly him to hospital.
The woman and her child, according to air force spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Piet Paxton, were later rescued by a police helicopter and its crew.
Paxton described the rescue mission as intense and said he had seen pilots and air crew going to the aid of 53 primary school children trapped by rising flood waters at their schools in the Acornhoek area of Bushbuckridge.
“The airlift rescue, which had to be called off several times, was extremely dangerous and adverse weather conditions made getting to some people very difficult,” Paxton said.
Spokeswoman for the Limpopo Disaster Management Centre Tseng Diale said three people were admitted to the Hoedspruit Military Hospital including the air force officer.
No deaths have been reported.
Despite being waterlogged in Skukuza camp in the Kruger National Park, a resident was in high spirits. She said flooding of the camp’s golf course had meant people could walk out on to the course and pluck fish from the ground.
Others set up small nets across some of the many streams that formed to catch fish.
She said she was lucky to be on the “happy side” of the camp as some of her colleagues did not have lights or water.
SANParks said no serious damage had been reported at Skukuza, but that Talamati, Buyamiti and Shimuwini camps were cut off and the Talamati and Balule camps were flooded.
The staff village, campsite, swimming pool and petrol station at Letaba were also swamped.
SANparks chief executive David Mabunda said “of the 1 800 guests in the KNP 80, including 10 staff members, were evacuated.
“Four tourists were trapped in their car overnight and were rescued this morning (Thursday), while six tourists were washed away in their car near the Hamilton tented camp while crossing a low water bridge.
“Fortunately, they were not seriously injured and were taken to the Nelspruit Hospital after being rescued.
“Sixty tourists, including foreign guests, were trapped in camps and lodges around the KNP.
“Fortunately all are safe,” he said.
While 80 percent of the park was functional, the biggest problem was the lack of potable water as most water pumps had been washed away with some sections of tarred road.
The town of Hoedspruitremains cut off with the R527 road which links Hoedspruit and Jonkmanspruit still closed to traffic yesterday.
Heavy floods partly washed away the bridge on the small Sandspruit river near the Zandspruit area less |than five kilometres west of Hoedspruit.
Linah Mangena, a teacher at Kgopong Primary School in the nearby Ga-Mametja village, has been unable to go to work for the past two days after the Sandspruit bridge collapsed.
Local farmers and their farmworkers were hard at work trying to repair the damaged bridge yesterday.
“It will be difficult but we |will rebuild this bridge |and we hope the road will |be open tomorrow (Saturday),” said Mike Scott, chairman of the Hoedspruit Farm Watch, a local farmer’s association.
Fourteen families had to be relocated in the rural Nkomazi area.
According to the Mpumalanga provincial Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, 30 houses were damaged in a number of villages south of Malalane.
Most schools were also unable to open.
Several water treatment plants at Ntunda, Sibange, Langeloop and Masibekela villages were badly damaged and tankers were bringing water to residents.
Paxton said that the SANDF would continue to be on stand by.
“In my previous experience the post clean-up is even bigger than during the flood,” he said.