The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) notes the recent deadly floods across Limpopo and Mpumalanga where torrential rain has forced evacuations, washed away homes and infrastructure, and claimed lives. At least 10 people have already died in Limpopo and 19 in Mpumalanga, and many more remain displaced as red-level warnings stay in place and rescue teams work tirelessly to reach those in need of help.
While we recognise the efforts of rescue teams and provincial authorities in responding to the crisis, this disaster once again exposes the systemic failures of South Africa’s disaster management systems. Communities were left vulnerable because early warning systems, effective evacuation planning and disaster preparedness were either absent, slow or poorly coordinated. In a time when flood forecasting, reporting systems and rapid evacuation should save lives, we have witnessed unacceptable delays and reactive responses that have needlessly cost lives and livelihoods.
Year after year, floods, whether here in early 2026 or in past calamities in KwaZuluNatal and Eastern Cape that left hundreds dead and thousands homeless, reveal the same pattern: a lack of investment in proactive disaster planning, inadequate infrastructure in vulnerable communities, and an overly reactive emergency response model.
The EFF calls on national, provincial and municipal authorities to take full responsibility for these failures and act immediately to strengthen disaster preparedness and resilience across all communities. Furthermore climate change and unpredictable weather patterns mean such extreme events will become more frequent. South Africa cannot afford to react only after tragedy strikes.
The EFF stands in solidarity with all those affected and will be present on the ground to assist in any way we can.
The EFF has a complex relationship with the South African Communist Party (SACP).
elder pogue
What\’s the difference between an ANC MP and a flying pig?
The letter F.
Landfill Max
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.