Durban floods: An open letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa

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The massive floods that hit KZN, and Durban in particular, in April 2019 are yet another indicator of how climate change is affecting our resilience. While President Cyril Ramaphosa recently acknowledged this, there has been a strange silence since, and big, carbon-intensive programmes are steaming ahead in the port city. Surely the time for talking is over?

durban floods

President Ramaphosa,

on 24 April 2019, you visited South Durban neighbourhoods. You had returned home to South Africa early from an important African Union conference because a catastrophic storm hit us on Easter Monday. The “rain bomb” that pounded South Durban included 168mm of downpour in 24 hours, by far the worst flooding ever recorded in the city.

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