The floods last week caused a tremendous amount of damage in the Kruger National Park with Shingwedzi and Letaba suffering a lot of damage. We received many photographs from various sources showing the devastation especially at Shingwedzi and in one camp; tourists had to be airlifted out by helicopter.
Flooding in Botswana had us on tender hooks at one stage with reports of a major dam wall collapsing but it later turned out to be merely a precautionary opening of a number of sluice gates to control the pressure behind the wall.
This however caused severe flooding downstream and the Limpopo is now in flood. One farmer lost over 15000 crocodiles on his farm adjacent to the river and one wonders if this is going to be a problem in the Limpopo River in years to come.
The rainy season is far from over and although the predictions for the next few days indicate just normal rainfall, we should be aware of the possibility of more heavy downpours and flooding.
Internationally, The Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System, GDACS, highlighted a number of items including earthquakes in Russia, Indonesia and Iran, flooding in Mozambique, Indonesia and Malawi plus two cyclones – one out to sea off the west coast of Australia and one near the Cook Islands that often get ravaged by Cyclones.
Europe and the UK are currently in the grip of severe cold and snow with air traffic disruptions on the odd occasion.
The new Hamnet ID cards arrived about two weeks ago and by the end of this coming week, all outstanding applications, and issuing of new cards will be up to date.
Kindly note that the new card no longer carries the signature of the National Director but merely his name and that all new cards now carry an expiry date of 3 years! This was done for two main reasons namely cards may become disfigured through much use and it is also a way of keeping members active over a long period of time.
Reporting for Hamnet, this is Francois Botha, ZS6BUU.
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