Floods batter Northern province

At least 50 people have been killed and more than 80,000 left homeless in South Africa's Northern province since heavy rains started more than two weeks ago, government officials told IRIN on Friday. Sam Hlungwane, of the Local Government and Housing department, said many roads in the province's northern region have been washed away while power lines and bridges have collapsed. "All the rivers have been flooded after the dams started overflowing," Hlungwane told IRIN. He added that five regions in the province were affected by the floods. "The rains were heavier this week following the Eline cyclone that cut off whole communities in the Bushbuckridge area, situated east of the province on the way to Mozambique." Hlungwane said the biggest problem is the lack of shelter as many of the mud houses in the flooded areas have collapsed. "Tents are in short supply and public buildings such as schools and halls are already overcrowded." Hlungwane added that limited food supplies have been delivered to some of the affected areas with the help of army helicopters. The weather bureau said the province can expect more rains over the weekend, which Hlungwane said could aggravate an already desperate situation. The flooded areas have been declared disaster zones and seven cabinet ministers are scheduled to visit the region at the weekend. Meanwhile, sources in Botswana's National Disaster Management Authority told IRIN on Friday there was a region-wide shortage of tents to shelter the hundreds of thousands of people in Southern Africa displaced by weeks of torrential rains. "We have enough blankets but tenting is the problem," one official said. "Normally we get our tents from South Africa but they are also affected."