{"id":42168,"date":"2026-01-24T00:50:51","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T00:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/42168\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T00:50:51","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T00:50:51","slug":"south-africas-kruger-park-suffers-devastating-damage-from-floods-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/42168\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s Kruger park suffers ‘devastating’ damage from floods | National"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa’s iconic Kruger National Park suffered major damage to critical infrastructure in recent flooding, with the cost of repairs estimated to run over 30 million dollars, officials said Thursday.<\/p>\n

Torrential rains and floods last week forced the world-famous safari destination, which is nearly the size of Wales, to halt day visits and airlift guests and staff to safety as swollen rivers swallowed large stretches of land.<\/p>\n

While there had been no loss of life within the park, parts of it were still underwater a week later and 15 camps remained closed, SANParks CEO Hapiloe Sello told reporters.<\/p>\n

More than 500 members of staff were “stuck” at camps within the reserve, waiting for the water to recede so they could leave, she told reporters.<\/p>\n

“In the Kruger National Park alone, the damage to critical infrastructure is so widespread that SANParks’ earliest estimates are that the damage will be in excess of half a billion rands ($30.6 million),” environment minister Willie Aucamp said at a media briefing.<\/p>\n

SANParks is a public body that manages South Africa’s 21 national parks.<\/p>\n

Staff and tourist accommodation has been destroyed and there was “devastating” damage to bridges, roads and water and electrical infrastructure, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The loss of tourism revenue from the flagship park could put “the sustainability of the entire network of parks at risk” because of the impact on SANParks’ operating budget.<\/p>\n

Kruger’s fauna — including the famed Big Five grouping of elephant, rhino, lion, leopard and buffalo — had largely escaped the flooding because animals had sensed the danger and moved to higher lying areas.<\/p>\n

“We have not seen one single carcass of any animal,” Aucamp said.<\/p>\n

The government has set up a fund to ensure the recovery of the site, which is in a region increasingly sensitive to climate change and natural disasters, he said, calling for local and international donations.<\/p>\n

Dozens of people lost their lives and hundreds of thousands were displaced in northeastern South Africa and neighbouring Mozambique in the flooding, caused by weeks of intense storms and rains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Africa’s iconic Kruger National Park suffered major damage to critical infrastructure in recent flooding, with the cost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[1220,19038,19034,19032,24873,19040,19033,9359,18585,1240,7680,19028,16356,24874,19031,19025,24875,19036,131,19039,16640,19037,19029,19026,19030,19035,19027,19024],"class_list":{"0":"post-42168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-afp","9":"tag-atlantic-hurricane-seasons","10":"tag-atlantic-hurricanes","11":"tag-atmospheric-circulation","12":"tag-big-five-game","13":"tag-branches-of-meteorology","14":"tag-disasters","15":"tag-flood","16":"tag-humanitarian-crises","17":"tag-infrastructure","18":"tag-kruger-national-park","19":"tag-meteorology","20":"tag-natural-disasters","21":"tag-natural-environment","22":"tag-natural-events","23":"tag-natural-hazards","24":"tag-physical-geography","25":"tag-seasons","26":"tag-south-africa","27":"tag-storm","28":"tag-storms","29":"tag-synoptic-meteorology-and-weather","30":"tag-tropical-cyclone-seasons","31":"tag-tropical-cyclones","32":"tag-tropical-meteorology","33":"tag-tropics","34":"tag-vortices","35":"tag-weather-events"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}