Limpopo premier warns rebuilding will be difficult

Limpopo premier Dr Phophi Ramathuba has warned that the scale of damage caused by recent floods to the province’s road network far exceeds the capacity of provincial and municipal resources, with at least R1.7bn needed to repair 439 damaged roads.

She was speaking during a press briefing on Friday before Dr Elias Sithole, head of the National Disaster Management Centre, on Saturday declared a national disaster in the province after recent severe weather led to floods and a loss of lives.

The declaration means there will be a coordinated, multi-sectoral national response designed to speed up relief and rehabilitation.

Ramathuba said the floods had left large parts of the province cut off, crippling economic activity and access to essential services.

“The sheer damage to our roads is something that even the reserve fund that we put in place in our provincial treasury will not be able to handle,” said Ramathuba.

She said the scale of destruction made it impossible for the province and affected municipalities to respond on their own.

“The intervention of national government, in particular the department of transport through Sanral, must be extended to provincial and district roads because on our own, even those provincial roads and municipal roads, it is going to be very difficult when we start rebuilding Limpopo,” she said.

Ramathuba said assessments were ongoing but early projections indicate that at least R1.7bn would be required to repair damaged roads while broader infrastructure repairs could exceed R4bn.

“Over R4bn is required to cover work across infrastructure. However, I must emphasise that these figures remain provisional because there are areas we have not yet been able to assess even using helicopters due to ongoing weather challenges,” she said.

Flooding has affected areas across the Vhembe, Mopani, Sekhukhune, Waterberg and Capricorn districts, leaving communities isolated and critical infrastructure damaged.

Eleven people have died as a result of the floods.

What this means is that we are no longer approaching dangerous warming globally; we are already seeing these impacts.

—  World Wide Fund for Nature

According to the premier, 439 roads spanning more than 600km require urgent intervention including several national and provincial routes that have either been severely damaged or completely closed.

Among the worst-affected roads are:

• R527 in the Hoedspruit area
• R40 near Maseke Game Reserve
• R71 between Gravelotte and Phalaborwa
• R36 between Oaks
• R578 (Silwana Road)
• Roads in Maruleng and Phalaborwa near Makhuva
• R26 between the R40 intersection and a gravel road
• R529 from Great Letaba Bridge to Aland Road
• R71 towards Phalaborwa (closed)
• R40 around the Phalaborwa area
• R531 from Louis Trichardt to the Punda Maria Gate via Thohoyandou, where major sections have been destroyed

“These are the roads that give access to clinics, police stations and schools. That is why in some areas children are not able to go to school,” Ramathuba said.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said the Copernicus Climate Change Service and World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) released fresh data last week indicating that global temperatures have already warmed by around 1.4°C above pre-industrial levels.

“What this means is that we are no longer approaching dangerous warming globally; we are already seeing these impacts.”

South Africa’s summer of extremes offer clear examples.

In the Western Cape, hot, dry and windy conditions have seen close to 100,000 hectares go up in flames, leaving the agricultural sector reeling and a call for a provincial state of disaster to be declared.

An extended tropical weather system over Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces, fuelled by warm water in the Mozambique channel, has caused severe flooding in the region, disrupting schooling and severely impacting the Kruger National Park and its gateway towns where tourism is a major revenue earner.

James Reeler, senior climate specialist at WWF South Africa, said 2020 to 2030 was meant to be the critical decade of action to bring runaway climate change under control.

“In the South African context, these weather events carry very heavy economic and human costs. Too frequently, the conversation is around the cost of putting mitigation measures into place to limit climate change, but it’s clear there is an even higher cost attached to inaction.”

He said South Africa needed to start spending money where it counted ― on limiting emissions and preparing people for a changing climate.

“In short, we must cut emissions faster, work to protect and restore nature and scale solutions while the window for action remains open. Our summer of extremes is but a small foretaste of the climate impacts that could follow if we do not act now.”

Copernicus estimated that long-term global warming has reached about 1.4°C above the 1850–1900 average.

“At the current pace, the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit could be reached by the end of this decade ― over a decade earlier than predicted based on the rate of warming at the time the agreement was signed in December 2015.”

The WWF said the WMO global assessment supported these findings, estimating that the global average temperature in 2025 was 1.44°C above pre-industrial levels.

“Even more concerning, the three-year average for 2023–2025 reached 1.48°C above pre-industrial levels. This is the closest the world has ever come to the Paris limit when measured over several year.“

The WWF said it was increasingly clear these temperature records were translating directly into record impacts: unprecedented heatwaves, droughts, storms and floods have made the past three years the costliest on record for climate-related damages.