News

Karoo National Park is trucking in water to communities affected by the outage caused as a result of a severe storm over Beaufort West last Thursday. It has availed two trucks, each carrying a 5 000 litre water tank, to support residents.

Flash floods damaged the main pipeline, which affected the water supply to the entire Central Karoo town. The Beaufort West Municipality says it is unclear how long it will take to restore water supply. The 600mm pipeline, the main supply to the town, is still submerged underwater.  Teams cannot access the pipe, resulting in delays in completing the assessment.

A Joint Operations Centre with different role players has already been established to handle the emergency.  The Park is taking guidance from the Municipality’s Infrastructure Department as to where the most urgent needs are.  Today they are in Rustdene, providing much-needed humanitarian assistance to communities facing the brunt of the impact of the disaster.

Park Management has also mobilised the SANParks Honorary Rangers, its volunteer organisation, to source bottled water – for additional distribution to communities.  To-date, a consignment of 100 five litre bottles has been secured and will be collected and distributed tomorrow.

The situation will monitored daily and assistance provided where needed.