Death toll in South Africa floods rises to 78

South Africa rescue teams recovered more bodies on Thursday, June 12, 2025, days after heavy rains and strong winds battered the Eastern Cape province, as the death toll increased to 78.

The bitterly cold winter storm struck the largely rural and underdeveloped province on Monday, June 9, causing a river to burst its banks and submerge homes, with several make-shift dwellings toppled.

The worst-hit area was around the city of Mthatha, about 800 kilometres (500 miles) south of Johannesburg, where residents picked through the mud three days later to salvage what they could from their destroyed homes.

Reporters saw a rescue team pull four bodies, some of them children, from a one-roomed house in the late afternoon as locals watched.

Houses, trees and cars were covered in mud and fields were strewn with debris.

‘No rice, no eggs’: Bolivians lament as economy tanks

“As the water subsides, more bodies are being discovered,” said Caroline Gallant, Eastern Cape manager at the South African Red Cross Society, which has sent assistance to the disaster zone.

More than 3,000 houses have been affected, she told AFP, adding that it was “the worst ever disaster” recorded in the area.

“The figure has gone to 78,” the minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs, Velenkosini Hlabisa, said.

These include six school students who were among 10 in a school van that was swept away in the flooding. Four of the children are still missing, officials said.

President Cyril Ramaphosa called the floods “unprecedented” and said he would visit the disaster-hit region on Friday, June 13.

The Star