Drenched and vexed

Nontobeko Hali had to walk on beer crates inside her shack to open the front door of her home in the Taiwan informal settlement in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, yesterday.

Hali's home and many others were flooded after heavy rains in Western Cape over the weekend.

The SA Weather Service issued a warning that cold, wet and windy conditions would sweep through Western Cape and the western parts of Northern Cape.

"I found my shack filled with water when I came back from work on Friday evening. I found plates and cups floating towards the door," said Hali.

"I had to use beer crates to raise my bed and stove so they couldn't get wet. My two young children can't play inside the house; they have to sit on the bed all the time."

But her neighbour, Nelisiwe Ntuku, was not as fortunate. She did not have any beer crates.

"My shack is too wet and cold to stay in. I had to send my daughter to my sister because she's asthmatic and can't cope," said Ntuku.

Wilfred Solomon-Johannes, the acting head of the City of Cape Town's disaster operations centre, said there had been no injuries or deaths reported as result of the bad weather.

He said the city had distributed 17 000 blankets to more than 25 000 people in informal settlements.

"No persons have been evacuated, only high levels of discomfort," said Solomon-Johannes.

Snow was seen on some parts of Table Mountain on Saturday. Collette van Aswegen, marketing manager of the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway, said: "We didn't see anything at the top station but some hikers sent some photos of snow on the mountain."

The SA Weather Service said yesterday light showers were expected along the Eastern Cape coast today as well as isolated and scattered showers in KwaZulu-Natal and in the southern parts of Mpumalanga.

The cold conditions are expected to persist in Western Cape and Gauteng will experience a significant drop in temperatures tomorrow.

But temperatures will pick up gradually in Western Cape on Thursday followed by the rest of the country.