The mayor of uThukela District Municipality in KwaZulu Natal has urged residents in Ladysmith to move to places of safety as heavy rains persist. The South African Weather Services has also predicted heavy downpours in the area over the next two weeks. Chief Ntandoyenkosi Shabalala said residents were ignoring severe weather warnings, leaving them stranded in flooded areas.

Shabalala said residents were dwelling in risky areas for them to commute to work easily. "They are moving from their homes to be closer to work, with some renting and others building shacks there. They should move away from those areas and go back home for this period of two weeks or so." he said. The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) said emergency services were on high alert and closely monitoring different areas due to the Level 2 warning issued by the South African Weather Services. COGTA spokesperson Siboniso Mngadi said upon realising that a significant amount of water was flowing into the Ladysmith town, some of the roads, including the N11 between Newcastle and Ladysmith, had to be temporarily closed to mitigate the risk. "Some of the roads will remain closed as the town is still flooded. Approximately 70 people were evacuated from Ladysmith central and taken to an Indoor Sports Centre to ensure everyone's safety, " Mngadi said.

The department together with the Disaster Management Centre has also urged motorists and pedestrians to avoid attempting to cross swollen rivers and streams as this may result in disasters and loss of life. Following heavy rains that are still continuing in various parts of the province, most of the rivers and streams are overflowing and some bridges are already flooded including the Tshelimnyama Bridge in Mariannhill in Durban and uThukela River which flows across the province. "We strongly advised motorists not to attempt to cross flooded bridges. There have been cars that have been washed away while attempting to cross. As more rains are expected in various parts of the province, rivers will continue to overflowing. Let us all be vigilant and exercise extreme caution to avoid disaster and loss of life during this period," Mngadi added. 

MEC for COGTA Bongiwe Sithole-Moloi said the government should have taken measures to ensure that such a disaster doesn't happen. "Where we can do a short-term intervention, we deal with those and correct them and then we move to medium and long-term solutions of the town. My concern was that we should have talked about what is it that we can do to prevent this from occurring." She said her department was working on implementing solutions to mitigate the dams from flooding into the town but added that this would cost billions.