Body of missing flood victim found
2013-01-24 14:34
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Scores of houses, schools, bridges and roads were damaged or washed away during eight days of rain in the province. See the pictures.
Polokwane - The body of a 57-year-old man swept away during
floods in Limpopo earlier in the week was discovered on Thursday.
Thomas Rampepe went missing in Ha-Kutama, Makhado, on
Tuesday after he tried to cross a flooded river while searching for his
livestock, Tshilwavhusiku police spokesperson Constable Munyadziwa Thenga said.
"We received a report that the community members, who
were also searching side-by-side with police, found his body in the
river."
At least 10 people had died in the Limpopo floods in the
past week. Three were still missing. Hundreds of people were left homeless.
In Musina, rescue teams were searching for the bodies of two
children who went missing on Sunday evening, after their car was washed away
when a bridge collapsed. Their father’s body was found partly buried under an
uprooted Mopani tree on a nearby farm.
Rescuers were searching for a villager from Shawela, near
Malamulele, swept away while crossing a river.
Rescue
Several districts in the north of Limpopo were still cut off
from the outside world. Air force and emergency service helicopters were being
used to rescue people from some settlements.
At least 95 people had been rescued from the Kruger National
Park. Limpopo emergency services had rescued more than 300 people from flooded
areas since Tuesday.
Beeld reported on Thursday that about 15 000 crocodiles
escaped from the Rakwena Crocodile Farm into the Limpopo River during the
flooding.
A few thousand of them were recaptured in the dense bush
next to the river and in adjacent orange groves, Zane Langman, the son-in-law
of Johan Boshoff, who owns Rakwena, told Beeld.
- Have you been affected by the floods? Send us your eyewitness accounts and photos.
- SAPA
