Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs CoGTA Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa says he expects to give an update on Saturday on the official death toll from the scene of devastation caused by floods in the Eastern Cape . He said the search and rescue team remains on the ground.
The death toll stands at 86, with more than 1,000 people displaced.
The search and rescue team is still on the ground and is able to find more people on a daily basis, and by the end of the day, I would like that we officially give the statistics as of today. Theres a process that we follow in terms of disaster management so that we confirm a figure in a formal way - but once we have discovered completely the five who were missing, we will be at rest knowing that people reported as missing have all been found, Hlabisa elaborates.
Dozens of family members at the Mthatha mortuary in the Eastern Cape are identifying the bodies of their loved ones. They have been sitting outside the mortuary waiting for their turn to go in.
Some of the people who are here to come and identify their loved ones are saying theyve lost everything. They are still trying to get the rest of their family members and they are saying that they started identifying the bodies for their loved ones where the floods had occurred until the bodies were taken to the mortuary.