DURBAN, June 30 (NNN-SANEWS) — The South African Government says it will assist the households affected by the tornado that ripped through Inanda, northwest of Durban, to rebuild their homes.
This was announced during an in-loco inspection led by Human Settlements Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi, who visited the area, to assess the damage and identify immediate relief interventions to help the victims through a District Development Model approach.
Earlier this year, Kubayi announced that the national Human Settlements Department would take over the implementation of the emergency housing programme. This was aimed at ensuring that government responds swiftly to disasters.
Joined by KZN Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube and eThekwini Municipality Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda, Kubayi said a team, including all three spheres of government, has been assembled to assess the damage caused by the tornado.
She said during the inspection, officials witnessed that some households are in desperate need of government’s intervention.
“The assistance we intend to extend to the affected households includes building materials to rebuild partially damaged houses and avail permanent solutions through alternative building technologies for households whose structures are completely destroyed,” Kubayi said.
The visit to Inanda was followed by a handover of houses to qualifying beneficiaries at the Kanku Road Housing Project, which has a complement of over 300 houses.
Most of the beneficiaries were relocated from various floodline areas or due to disasters in the eThekwini region.
“We also accept that as government, we still have a long way to go to deliver houses for all. However, we are working around the clock to ensure that government delivers on its set promises,” Kubayi said.
Meanwhile, the South African Weather Service (SAWS) has confirmed that the disruptive rain which led to localised flooding across large parts of KwaZulu-Natal, was due to a landspout, not a tornado, as most people suspected.
Explaining the landspout event in the Inanda and Phoenix area, SAWS said apart from damage to property due to the heavy and persistent rain, there was also damage to housing structures due to the strong winds associated with the landspout phenomenon.
At this stage, SAWS said the severity of damage resulting from this event lies within the lower end of the Enhanced Fujita Scale (EF scale) used to assess storm damage due to landspouts, waterspouts and tornadoes.
Based on photographic evidence at hand, SAWS rates the event as an EF1, associated with wind gusts well in excess of 100 km/h.
“On first impression, landspouts and tornadoes do look very similar; both phenomena manifest themselves as a dark, spinning vortex or tube extending from the base of a cloud. Both phenomena have the capacity to cause wind damage.
“Tornadoes typically cause damage across a much greater range of the EF scale, from EF0 (minor damage) right up to EF5 (catastrophic damage), whilst wind damage due to landspouts or waterspouts tends to be much less severe,” SAWS said in a statement.
SAWS said while landspouts and tornadoes may look very similar, their formative processes are widely different.
It noted that the formation of a tornado requires a “parent thunderstorm”.
“Interestingly, there is no evidence to suggest that any electrical storms were active in the Inanda and Phoenix areas during mid-afternoon [on 27 June] when the landspout was observed. No eyewitnesses mentioned either lightning or thunder.
“Moreover, despite cloudy conditions – with rain being observed throughout much of the day at King Shaka International Airport (approximately 15km north-north east of Phoenix), no thunderstorms were observed,” SAWS said. — NNN-SANEWS
