Floods killed at least 78 people after record rainfall in South Africa’s impoverished Eastern Cape province.

On June 9, a winter storm dropped 129 millimeters (5.1 inches) of rain on the town of Mthatha, close to Nelson Mandela’s burial site, nearly doubling the previous record, according to preliminary data from the South African Weather Service. Elliot weather station recorded 160 millimeters, about four times the previous high in 1997.

The storm was part of a wider weather system that also brought snow to parts of the Eastern Cape and the neighboring KwaZulu-Natal province. The resulting floods proved deadly as houses near rivers were engulfed and vehicles swept off bridges.

The floods are the latest in a series of adverse weather events to hit South Africa. Last year Cape Town had record rainfall in July and tens of thousands of homes were damaged. In 2022 at least 459 people died when torrential rains hit the port city of Durban.

Even before the floods, large parts of South Africa — including regions in the Eastern Cape — had seen the wettest month on record through June 5, preliminary data from the University of California Santa Barbara’s Climate Hazards Center show.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa changed his schedule on Friday to visit disaster-struck areas in the affected province, where much of the population lives in hard-to-access rural areas.

Global warming is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, from violent storms and flooding to droughts and wild fires. Scientists have warned that an accelerated water cycle is locked into the world’s climate system due to past and projected greenhouse gas emissions, and is now irreversible.

Scientists say their existing models may have underestimated the extent to which global warming is causing extreme rainfall. The communities that tend to pay the highest price are often in poorer countries, where environments can be more fragile and governance more patchy, and there are fewer resources to bounce back after a disaster.

Last year, the Spanish region of Valencia was struck by a catastrophic downpour that caused over 200 deaths and billions of dollars in insurance losses, while Hurricane Helene unleashed historic floods IN the U.S. Southeast, killing at least 166 people.

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