Motorist swept away in flash flood
Police divers searching for a motorist reportedly swept away by the Honingnestkrans River were forced to abandon their rescue mission.
|||Pretoria - Police divers searching for a motorist reportedly swept away by the Honingnestkrans River, north of the city, on Thursday morning were forced to abandon their search-and-rescue mission due to heavy rain and continuously high levels of water.
SAPS divers were on the scene soon after the man was reportedly swept away by the flash floods while on his way to work at about 6am.
“The river broke its banks and the water swell was massive when he tried to drive through. He was tossed into the river,” a policeman on the scene said.
Witnesses reported that the man was alone in his car - a Toyota sedan - when he was caught in the flood. When they saw his car being carried away they immediately called the community policing forum and emergency services.
Metro police and the SAPS were on the scene soon after, and police divers immediately started their search.
“We located the car where it was trapped by a tree, but as we reached it, it was dislodged and carried further down the river where it got stuck under a bridge,” a police diver said. They were unable to reach it due to the heavy flow, and unable to confirm if an occupant was inside.
Rivers across the city broke their banks after a night of heavy rains on Wednesday, which caused damage in some areas and led to road closures.
Heavy rain fell across the city on Wednesday afternoon, continuing through the night.
An early warning of extreme weather conditions had been issued by Tshwane Emergency Services on Tuesday, cautioning people to be careful at low bridges.
They predicted heavy rain and flash floods and asked people to shelter inside and to steer clear of low lying bridges and other areas prone to overflowing water.
In Centurion the flooding of the Hennops River on Wednesday night damaged the surface of Lenchen North Avenue, the force of the water breaking the tar and leaving the road with cracks and unusable.
An engineer on the site, near Centurion Lake Hotel, said repair work could only start after the rain had stopped and when the ground had dried up.
Fixing the road could take anything up to and beyond a week to complete, he said.
“That road will remain closed for a while, a lot of work needs to go into fixing it,” Tshwane Emergency Services spokesman Johan Pieterse said.
The lowlying Hennops River bridge along Rabie Street was also flooded and the road closed on Thursday. The water levels remained high as rain fell intermittently.
Pieterse on Thursday said more rain was predicted for last night and today, going into the weekend, something rescue divers said would hamper their rescue efforts.
“We are going back in the morning to try to resume our search, but any more rain will mean we cannot go into the river,†the diver explained.
He said that if they were able to get to the car their first mission would be to rescue the occupant.
If he was not in there it would be the start of a search for the body, and that would be a mission that would demand a lot more effort and time given the extent of the flooding, he said.
By on Thursday morning, the city had received more than 100mm of rain, Pieterse said, while the SA Weather Service reported 113mm of rain at Irene.
Many streets in and around Pretoria were flooded with rain water and in certain areas where storm drainage systems have been blocked by refuse and debris, water dammed nearby, making traffic passage and pedestrian movement difficult.
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