CARtoday.com brings you dramatic pictures of motorists struggling through masses of floodwater in the streets of Observatory in Cape Town.
One could be excused for thinking these pictures were taken by an intrepid spy photographer snapping Audi and VW products being tested for their amphibious capabilities. In actual fact, these pictures were taken on Wednesday when citizens in the vicinity of the River Club in Observatory had to flee great masses of water flooding onto roads when the Liesbeek River burst its banks.
It has been the wettest winter in Cape Town in 44 years and Wednesday’s driving rain was no exception. City motorists braved debri-laden roads and lengthy delays caused by flash floods, rockfalls and uprooted trees.
Traffic leaving the city was halted in Vredehoek when an uprooted pine tree blocked Jutland Avenue. On the M3, vehicles “spluttered through a river of mud that meandered across Princess Anne Avenue near the Rhodes Memorial turn-off,” the Cape Times reported.
,p>Judging from these pictures, it is not difficult to believe that 40 people – who were trapped at the River Club conference centre – had to be taken by tractor across a waist-high lake the size of a rugby field.