Flash Flooding in Pretoria

Update:

Guateng police have announced that a 52-year-old man was found dead in a stream between Doornkop and Emdeni in Soweto on Tuesday 4 February 2014. The man is believed to have drowned in the recent flooding in the area. Police divers found his body one kilometre away from the area from which he went missing on Monday.

Original Report:

In addition to flooding in Johannesburg, heavy rains over the weekend also caused flash flooding in parts of Pretoria (Tshwane Metro) in Gauteng province, South Africa.

Two men were rescued on Monday after being trapped for about four hours by flood waters in the Centurion suburb of Pretoria.

One of the two men was trapped under the Gautrain railway bridge over the Hennops River near Supersport Stadium. He was rescued by police divers using a canoe, and was treated for shock, trauma and hypothermia. ER24 general manager Peter van der Spuy said that the homeless man, identified only as Richard, had been standing in knee-deep water and was suffering from extreme exhaustion from the effort of keeping himself erect while withstanding the strong current.

“His body used up a lot of oxygen and depleted the system,” van der Spuy said, adding that the man had been taken to the the Kalafong Hospital after being treated on the scene.

Another homeless man, Nxumgwana, had managed to climb a nearby tree and waited on the highest branch for rescue, which came about 30 minutes later, at about 2pm. After his rescue he was treated on the scene but did not require hospitalisation.

The flooding of the Hennops River had a ripple effect across Centurion, affecting several roads, including Lenchen North and South, Blackwood, Witstinkhout and West.

Access to the Centurion Lake Hotel was cut off for a period when the river flooded the adjacent road, with guests scrambling to move their vehicles to higher ground.

Centurion Lake Hotel Flooding and Has Evacuated All Guests. A Car Trapped In Floods At Hotel Basement… pic.twitter.com/JcS36CThZG

— Bro Charlie Masala (@charliemasala1) February 4, 2014

Petros Mahlangu, his wife and their seven-month old son, who were also caught in the flash floods while waiting for the rain to subside, had to abandon their car on Lenchen North Road and wade through waist-high water to safety.

“As a boy I spent hours herding cattle, and I was often caught in flooded rivers, so I knew I should walk across the river upstream, so that it did not carry us away.” Mhlangu said.