Dozens of families affected as polluted Cape Town dam overflows

Families have used crates and concrete blocks to raise their beds and furniture above the dirty water in their homes. Photos: Peter Luhanga

• A dam near Dunoon has overflowed after heavy rains, flooding homes in a nearby informal settlement with filthy water.
• A community leader says 172 people have been affected.
• Residents have dug trenches outside their homes to divert the water. The City of Cape Town says the settlement is on land which is not suitable for human habitation.

Relentless winter rains in Cape Town have caused a dam near Dunoon to overflow, flooding the homes of 172 residents in Ekuphumuleni informal settlement.

The dam, which is situated behind the Dunoon municipal hall, has breached its banks, pushing dirty water and debris into people’s homes.

Residents have dug shallow trenches between shacks to divert the water but some has still flowed into homes. Families have used crates and concrete blocks to raise their beds and furniture above the water.

Lindile Nxana, has been living in Ekuphumuleni informal settlement for 19 years, sharing a two-room shack with his wife and their three children. Nxana said he tried laying municipal refuse bags on the floor to stop the water seeping into his bedroom but it didn’t help. He and his family are now sleeping in the kitchen area.

“Water is coming from the ground. When we scoop the water, within a minute it fills up again,” says Nxana.

He had dug a trench just outside his shack in an effort to redirect the flow from the dam.

“Last winter was the same. The City of Cape Town must come up with a plan for us,” he said.

Water from the dam has overflowed into the settlement.

Nokuthula Peti has also lived in Ekuphumuleni for 19 years, and shares her one-room shack with her three children.The two older children sleep on the floor, and have had to move to her cousin’s house to get away from the water.

Peti’s cousin, Nikiwe Tshoba, a mother of three, said the family hasn’t been sleeping since the heavy downpour last week. “If we were renting, we could have vacated these homes, but we own them and have Eskom electricity meters. We purchase our own electricity,” she says.

She said in nearby Bekhela informal settlement, where there were no toilets, residents threw waste into the dam. “The water is dirty, like an open sewer.”

Ekuphumuleni community leader Thobeka Hlamvana said a list of 172 affected residents, including young children, had been compiled.

Subcouncil 3 manager Roxanne Moses said the disaster management department in the subcouncil had assessed the informal settlement over the weekend and offered residents “milling” (fine rubble to raise their floors), and returned on Monday 22 July for further evaluation.

“They also offered flood relief kits,” said Moses.

Sonia Lategan, spokesperson for the City of Cape Town’s disaster risk management department, said the land was not suitable for human habitation because of the risk of flooding. The department had conducted a door to door campaign in Dunoon to discuss flood risks and mitigation measures such as “raising floor levels higher than the surrounding ground area”.

She said Gift of the Givers had provided meals to affected residents on Monday.

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