'There was nothing we could do,' says South African woman who watched floodwaters engulf her home

Sheena Goodyear · CBC Radio

· Posted: Jun 19, 2025 5:59 PM EDT | Last Updated: 13 minutes ago

One moment, Zukiswa Mbuku and her hubby were eating meal and having an mean Tuesday. The next, they were fleeing with thing but the apparel connected their backs arsenic raging floodwaters swallowed their home. 

The aged mates unrecorded adjacent a stream successful Mthatha, a South African town in the coastal state of Eastern Cape, which is presently nether a authorities of nationalist catastrophe arsenic radical effort to retrieve from past week's deadly floods.

Mbuku says she and her hubby had conscionable finished eating erstwhile a neighbour ran successful and warned them to tally due to the fact that the h2o from the stream was rapidly approaching the houses. From the backmost window, they could already spot their plot flooding.

"Then we went retired done the beforehand door. When we looked down the road, the h2o was coming," Mbuku told As It Happens big Nil Kӧksal. 

The stream h2o astir seemed to gallop towards them, she said, but soundlessly, similar a silent, yet terrifying, horse. Within minutes, it had surrounded their location up to the windows. 

"We had to unreserved retired without taking thing due to the fact that everything happened truthful fast," she said. "There was thing we could do."

'Unprecedented, catastrophic and unimaginable'

An utmost upwind beforehand brought dense rain, beardown winds and snowfall to 1 of South Africa's poorest provinces past week, causing flooding that near 92 people dead and roads, houses, schools and different infrastructure damaged. Mthatha was the hardest hit.

At slightest 2 schoolhouse children who were washed distant successful a autobus are among the unverified fig of missing persons according to section media reports, portion thousands person since been displaced.

Authorities person appealed for residents to study missing radical truthful rescuers could amended recognize however galore radical they were inactive looking for.

"Since June 9, this state has been deed hard by unprecedented, catastrophic and unimaginable disasters," Zolile Williams, a subordinate of the provincial legislature's executive council, said connected Thursday during a memorial work successful Mthatha for the victims.

"Since that day, the Eastern Cape has not been the same."

Struggle to rebuild what's been lost

Life has surely not been the aforesaid for Mbuku. 

She and her hubby person since recovered refuge successful a section furniture and breakfast, she says, conscionable 5 homes distant from their flooded house.

"We are astatine the curve of the river. So each the houses that are astatine the curve earlier the stream straightens, they were affected," she said. "The different houses are connected the precocious side. The h2o ne'er reached them."

When the floodwaters receded, the mates went backmost to their location to measure the damage.

"When my hubby opened the beforehand door, the h2o rushed similar anything. It was forceful," she said. "The fridge was floating, chairs were floating, couches were floating."

Some of her furniture, she said, had been breached isolated and flung astir the house.

While the location is inactive standing, it's inactive excessively damp and h2o damaged to determination backmost in, particularly with Mbuku's asthma. 

"We are 70-something years old. It's rather traumatic," she said. "How bash you stitchery and reconstruct what you collected each these years? What bash you do?"

Community pulls together

Declaring a nationalist catastrophe allows the authorities to merchandise backing for alleviation and rehabilitation. But Mbuku says she hasn't received overmuch successful the mode of assistance from immoderate authorities officials. A section councillor phoned them, she says, and "promised that they would bash thing due to the fact that of our age."

"We thought they would supply america with accommodation, but they didn't," she said. Instead, she says, it was her household who helped find them a spot to stay. 

But she says her assemblage — relatives, neighbours, and members of her religion —  person stepped up to connection what enactment they can. 

"We are assisting 1 another," she said.