This as a video of a public ambulance which was trapped in the mud in Caleb Motshabi on Saturday has been circulated online, raising questions, as to whether something will be done to improve the roads in the area. 

"This ambulance is trapped in the mud at Caleb Motshabi Square in Bloemfontein. This is the same place which Executive Mayor of MMM Me. Olly Mlamleli visited three weeks ago when it was flooded, for how long is a black Nation going to leave like this ?" pic.twitter.com/4JmuiOKASw

— Baba Sebolao (@SebolaoBaba) February 8, 2020 ">

This ambulance is trapped in the mud at Caleb Motshabi Square in Bloemfontein. This is the same place which Executive Mayor of MMM Me. Olly Mlamleli visited three weeks ago when it was flooded, for how long is a black Nation going to leave like this ? pic.twitter.com/4JmuiOKASw

— Baba Sebolao (@SebolaoBaba) February 8, 2020

Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality’s spokesperson, Qondile Khedama, says the ambulance was assisted and the metro’s teams including disaster management, are on standby in case of more heavy rain.

In early January 2019, Caleb Motshabi was one of a handful of areas that were badly affected by localised flooding following a severe thunderstorm. Residents in the nearby Dinaweng settlement had to be evacuated and were temporarily relocated to the Paradise Hall in Bochabela.

On 24 January, Free State Premier Sisi Ntombela visited the remaining roughly thirty people that were still living at the community hall and presented them with groceries and other necessities like wood and corrugated iron sheets. In her address to those who were displaced, Ntombela highlighted that the Executive Mayor of Mangaung Metro Municipality, Olly Mlamleli, and Cogta MEC, Thembeni Nxangisa, are working on long-term measures that could be implemented to ensure that informal settlement dwellers are moved to safer, developed areas.

A forecaster at the South African Weather Service, Quinton Jacobs, tells OFM News there is still a chance of heavy rains in the province on Sunday and Monday. These rainy weather conditions will fizzle out from Tuesday onwards in the Eastern Free State. Jacobs says indications are the wet conditions will return again next week.

Meanwhile, the above-mentioned informal settlements are not entirely out of the woods as yet.

OFM News