Unfortunately Cyclone Kenneth has stayed on course and has battered northern Mozambique on Thursday with gusts of up to 280 km per hour after killing three people on the island nation of Comoros overnight. Impoverished Mozambique is still recovering from another powerful tropical cyclone (Idai) which made landfall further south last month, flattening the port […]

Violent winds of up to 140 kph lashed the East African island nation of Comoros overnight, killing three people, authorities said on Thursday, as tropical Cyclone Kenneth swept towards flood-battered Mozambique and southern Tanzania. The region was pounded by Cyclone Idai last month; the storm and subsequent flooding killed more than 1,000 people in Mozambique, […]

Rescue workers are in a fight against time to find unaccounted-for people as the death toll from the torrential rains in Durban and along the eastern coast of South Africa exceeds 70 people. Rescuers are still sadly discovering more bodies in areas where mudslides and sinkholes have swallowed homes. KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province, where most of […]

The Ramaphosa Village graveyard in Patensie, Eastern Cape, is in a sad state. GroundUp found pigs rooting in the graveyard, headstones knocked over, and graves vandalised. Villagers use the unfenced property as a shortcut. A number of shacks have also gone up on the very edge of the cemetery. A legal dispute lodged by a […]

There have been renewed calls for South Africa to join other countries in Africa, most recently Tanzania, who have pledged to ban single-use plastic… as mountains of plastic refuse have piled up on Durban’s once iconic beachfront following the devastating floods in KZN this week that left 60 dead and over 1,000 people displaced. Tragically […]

KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Health MEC, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo, has urged the relatives of people who passed away during the flash floods that swept through Durban on Monday night and Tuesday to come forward and identify their bodies. According to Reuters, the latest figures put the death toll at 60 people, and more than 1,000 have fled […]

MAPUTO – Another tropical cyclone – Kenneth – is expected to make landfall on Mozambique’s coast on Thursday, just over a month after a more powerful storm struck the Mozambican port city of Beira further south and killed hundreds of people. Weather forecasters say Cyclone Kenneth will bring heavy rainfall, strong winds and waves of […]

President Cyril Ramaphosa today visited sites in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), South Africa, which have suffered devastating flooding and subsequent mudslides this week, leading to the death of 51 people and hospitalisation of over 30. Bodies are sadly still being dug out from under the mud and collapsed buildings. The President announced that the government has availed […]

More than 50 people were killed in southern and eastern parts of South Africa after heavy rains caused flooding and mudslides, authorities said on Wednesday. Rescue workers were digging through collapsed homes and other buildings in coastal areas of KwaZulu-Natal province, where the death toll stood at 51, local officials said. There are also over […]

President Cyril Ramaphosa has conveyed condolences to the government of Sri Lanka following a series of deadly terrorist bombings over the Easter weekend which left 321 dead, of which 45 were children. The wave of suicide bomb attacks on churches and hotels started Sunday morning as explosions were reported from St. Anthony’s Church in Kochchikade […]

Massive flooding in Durban, South Africa, overnight left at least 23 people dead, after multiple structural collapse, and many more missing and buried under mud and debris, according to IPSS Medical Rescue. The KwaZulu-Natal Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Department announced at a press briefing on Tuesday morning that over 2,000 emergency calls were received […]

Poor people in South Africa often feel that the only way they can be heard is to protest. The past few days have shown that not even this gets them a hearing. Protests in the townships and shack settlements where most poor people live in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Cape Town are in the news. These […]

“Simo spent his birthday cold, lying in the mortuary”, a heartbroken Cora Kwepe, great aunty of Zonnebloem NEST Senior School learner, Simo Kwepe, told GroundUp on Thursday. Simo was killed on a Cape Town Metrorail line last week Friday, 12 April. He would have celebrated his 17th birthday on Sunday, 14 April. Kwepe said one […]

British former marathon runner Paula Radcliffe believes the verdict of a legal case involving Olympic champion Caster Semenya could open the door for transgender athletes to claim an unfair advantage in women’s sport. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is expected to rule this month on whether the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) […]

JOHANNESBURG – Thirteen people were killed in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, during an Easter service after a church wall collapsed on them late on Thursday, during a violent storm, following days of heavy rains and strong winds, emergency services said on Friday. The tragedy took place at Pentecostal Holiness Church in Empangeni. The 13 fatalities reportedly […]

JOHANNESBURG – South Africa’s government has had to bring forward the bailout of state power firm Eskom, after it rushed 5 billion rand ($355 million) to the struggling utility earlier this month to avert a default and said more cash could be needed soon. Eskom supplies more than 90 percent of electricity in Africa’s most […]

JOHANNESBURG – South Africa faces escalating unrest if the governing African National Congress (ANC) party retains power in next month’s election and fails to introduce major reforms, Mmusi Maimane – leader of the country’s biggest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA) – said on Thursday. In the most hotly contested election since the end of […]

With little faith in their government, Zimbabweans took the rescue effort into their own hands after Cyclone Idai hit the Chimanimani region. Steve Kretzmann reports… The first rains in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai fell on Chimanimani on 12 April, once again isolating the town nearly a month after floods and mudslides left at least […]

South Africans have had enough of their Ford Fiesta motor vehicles being broken into, so much so that there’s a Facebook group called “My FORD was Broken into…South Africa” that has over 3,800 members… many of whom are tagging Carte Blanche in a bid to get the current affairs show to investigate the problem, as […]

Visitors to the Kruger National Park in South Africa made a lucky escape when an elephant, which had been feeding next to the side of the road, suddenly decided to charge them. Fortunately there were no cars behind them BUT the gravel road was “extremely slippery” as it had been raining, so reversing was a […]

Hundreds of thousands of people are still in need of aid after Cyclone Idai battered Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi in March. More than 1,000 people have been reported killed by the storm, the flooding it caused and heavy rains before it hit. The World Bank estimates the affected countries will need over $2 billion to […]

JOHANNESBURG – Ratings agency Moody’s warned South Africa again on Tuesday that growing government debt linked to bailouts of state firms would continue to pressure the country’s investment grade status. Moody’s was the last of the big three ratings agencies to give South Africa an investment-grade rating, so markets are sensitive to any pronouncement it […]

Social media is going crazy after South African pop singer Kurt Darren ‘wrecked’ the country’s national anthem – Nkosi Sikelel‘ iAfrika – at a Varsity Cup rugby game. Some said he ‘butchered’ it and, in the words of Tumi Sole, “didn’t even bother to learn the Sotho lyrics of the National Anthem”. Others – like Tshepo Bothata […]

The spire of Paris’ iconic Notre-Dame collapsed Monday evening, quickly followed by the entire roof, as a fast-moving fire has torn through the 850-year-old cathedral, devastating France’s famous landmark as large segments of the roof have gone up in flames. One witness told Reuters: “Basically the whole rooftop is gone. I see no hope for […]

JOHANNESBURG – South African police have intercepted 167 rhino horns believed to be destined for Southeast Asia, in one of the biggest such hauls ever in the country. Two suspects, aged 57 and 61, were arrested with the horns on Saturday, police said on Sunday. They had been tipped off about the suspects’ vehicle. “The […]