Death toll from Eastern Cape floods rises to 90

Graeme Raubenheimer, in for CapeTalk's John Maytham, speaks to Khuselwa Rantjie, Spokesperson for the Eastern Cape Office of the Premier.

Listen below:

Rantjie says two more bodies have been found, bringing the death toll from flooding in the Eastern Cape to 90.

She says 30 of those are children. 

The Department of Health has conducted post-mortems on 80 bodies.

"They've been positively identified and 77 of those have been released to families."

- Khuselwa Rantjie, Spokesperson for the Eastern Cape Office of the Premier

She says the Department of Social Development is doing a needs analysis "so that government may step in and support where necessary".

The area was struck by a storm last Monday leaving scores of people homeless and infrastructure like roads, schools and clinics damaged.

Rantjie says Mthatha is the worst-hit area.

Asked about there being no sluice gates at Mthatha Dam to control water, she said the community is calling for an investigation.

"I think, we would want to allow that process to continue and be able to comment... when we have determined what would have happened. But it's important for South Africans and the people of the Eastern Cape to understand that the area that is mostly affected by these floods... it's an area that is almost surrounded by Mthatha River... There have been houses that are built on a floodplain... So there are a lot of possibilities from where we're standing but we would want to allow the investigation to continue."

- Khuselwa Rantjie, Spokesperson for the Eastern Cape Office of the Premier

Scroll up to listen to the full interview.