{"id":251001,"date":"2023-02-24T01:43:28","date_gmt":"2023-02-23T23:43:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/search-for-toddler-continues-in-coffee-bay-as-five-others-alreadt-confirmed-dead-during-floods-last-friday\/"},"modified":"2023-02-24T01:43:28","modified_gmt":"2023-02-23T23:43:28","slug":"coffee-bay-flood-man-describes-how-he-survived-by-grabbing-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/coffee-bay-flood-man-describes-how-he-survived-by-grabbing-tree\/","title":{"rendered":"Coffee Bay Flood: Man describes how he survived by grabbing tree"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Mkhuseli%20Sizani\/tyelinzima_high_school.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"warn_big\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/coffee-bay-flood-man-describes-how-he-survived-by-grabbing-tree.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Tyelinzima High School, made of prefabricated classrooms, in Coffee Bay in the Eastern Cape was completely swept away by flooding last Friday. Photos: Mkhuseli Sizani<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Thousands of families in the OR Tambo District Municipality are stranded and cut off from the essential services this week as most roads and bridges have been damaged or swept away by flooding last Friday.<\/li>\n<li>The bodies of eight people have been recovered and emergency teams are still searching for two people.<\/li>\n<li>People describe how they survived and lost their loved ones.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A distraught aunt from Zithulele Village near Coffee Bay in the Eastern Cape says it was the smell of a decomposing corpse and flies that led the family to her niece\u2019s body after she was swept away during flooding a week ago.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/coffee-bay-flood-man-describes-how-he-survived-by-grabbing-tree.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>Her niece, 18-year-old Andiswa Mazwi, is one of eight people confirmed to have died \u2014 and whose bodies have been recovered \u2014 following the torrential rains and flooding across the OR Tambo District Municipality since last Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of families were left stranded and cut off from essential services this week as most roads and bridges have been damaged or swept away. Big trees have been uprooted and debris from damaged homes and belongings lay strewn on the ground. Many learners can\u2019t go to school, particularly those attending Tyelenzima High School as most of the building was swept away. There is still no electricity, water and mobile network.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, Keleke Mazwi of Zithulele Village told GroundUp that the family is thankful that they can get closure by finding Andiswa\u2019s remains; they don\u2019t have enough money to bury the teenager. \u201cMy sister has been sitting at home waiting for her daughter\u2019s remains. Although we have found her body, we have no money to bury her. She was a grade 10 learner at Upper Mpaku High School,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Nophosile Phakamile, who assisted in searching for missing villagers this week, said: \u201cWatching another woman cry for her child is unbearable. These floods have destroyed our lives. As long as there are missing bodies, we will not rest until we find all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Loyiso Ntungwana lived near the Mapuzi River with his wife, six children and grandchild. He described the chaotic night, having to rescue his relatives but regrets not having been able to save his son\u2019s girlfriend who drowned. His homestead was completely destroyed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll my children were already sleeping, and their mother was working a night shift\u2026 In less than an hour there was a thunderstorm. Electricity poles got damaged and the whole place went dark. I quickly grabbed my torch and called my sons to wake up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Mkhuseli%20Sizani\/coffee_bay_shop_floods.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/coffee-bay-flood-man-describes-how-he-survived-by-grabbing-tree-1.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">One of the shops near Nenga Bridge in Coffee Bay was badly damaged and surrounding houses were washed away.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI rushed into one of the rondavels and woke my eldest daughter because the water was about knee-deep. I put my [four-year-old] granddaughter on my back and took her to my neighbour\u2019s house. I came back and the water was at the level of the windows.\u201d Ntungwana said he found his two sons and the son\u2019s girlfriend on the roof of the main house. He said all three had jumped into the \u201cstrong current\u201d and when he tried to help, he too was swept away and ended up about 500 metres away when he held onto a tree.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy brother arrived and assisted me in rescuing my two daughters, 12 and 15, who were trapped in one of the rondavels. My wife cried uncontrollably for our children \u2026 Our house was covered in water.\u201d He managed to save his daughters.<\/p>\n<p>Ntungwana said they later found out that his sons had survived but the girlfriend did not. \u201cThis flood destroyed my home and left us traumatised. I don\u2019t want to live here anymore. But I have no money to rebuild my home in another place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Ntungwana\u2019s son, Abongile, 21, said he was relieved that his girlfriend\u2019s body was recovered. \u201cI last saw her when we were on top of the roof running away from the floods. I asked her whether she can swim? My brother jumped and she also panicked and jumped into the water. I then also jumped into the water and was swept near the spaza shop.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was scared of her family\u2019s reaction but they told me it was not my fault. But I\u2019m heartbroken,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Coffee Bay community leader, Zolile Rixi, said everything is at a standstill. \u201cLives, businesses and jobs have been destroyed. There is no electricity, water and network. Six villages have been cut out since the Nenga Bridge collapsed. People from Hole in the Wall are also affected. Thousands of learners from this side cannot access the schools.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Mkhuseli%20Sizani\/brigde_destroyed_coffee_bay.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/coffee-bay-flood-man-describes-how-he-survived-by-grabbing-tree-2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Debris and uprooted trees blocked part of the damaged bridge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have about ten cooperatives with over 2,000 people, mainly youth, who were being trained here to become divers and for farming. The place was fully equipped. We also had about four big refrigerated containers used by the divers to store the crayfish that was sold in Cape Town. But all those containers were swept away by floods.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rixi added: \u201cThere are no fridges to store our food. People cannot go to the clinics, work and access their grants. The municipality is still busy trying to create an alternative route.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zimkhitha Macingwane, spokesperson for the OR Tambo District Municipality revealed that all the local municipalities in the district were affected by floods. She said eight people have died and two are still missing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMore than 500 km of road is damaged with at least ten collapsed bridges at Coffee Bay. The flood victims are sharing space with their relatives,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile Gift of the Givers is assisting flood victims with food.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Mkhuseli%20Sizani\/tyelinzima_high_school_destroyed.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/coffee-bay-flood-man-describes-how-he-survived-by-grabbing-tree-3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2023 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/coffee-bay-flood-man-describes-how-he-survived-by-grabbing-tree.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tyelinzima High School, made of prefabricated classrooms, in Coffee Bay in the Eastern Cape was completely swept away by flooding last Friday. Photos: Mkhuseli Sizani Thousands of families in the OR Tambo District Municipality are stranded and cut off from the essential services this week as most roads and bridges have been damaged or swept [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":251002,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928,3247],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-251001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"category-news","9":"tag-groundup","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/coffee-bay-flood-man-describes-how-he-survived-by-grabbing-tree.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}