At least 30 people have been killed and thousands left homeless by floods in South Africa, which have also devastated parts of neigbouring Mozambique and Botswana.

Several regions of South Africa are asking to be declared disaster zones so that they can get central government help for reconstruction, with 100,000 people left homeless in the floods.

In the Northern Province which has been hardest hit, bridges, roads, electricity, generating plants and water pumping stations have been washed away.

Three children, the youngest aged only seven, are the latest victims there, carried off in the flood waters.

South Africa's heaviest rains in 50 years are predicted to continue until the weekend.

In Alexandra township, north-east of Johannesburg, several homes were partially swept away when the Jukskei river burst its banks, and residents were evacuated.

Emergency operations to rescue people trapped in remote rural villages are under way.

Army helicopters airlifted about 200 foreign tourists cut off by floodwaters in the Kruger National Park, South Africa's biggest game reserve.

Click here for a map of the affected areas

Game rangers there report few casualties among the wildlife population, saying most of the animals reached high ground in time.

In Botswana, dams have been overflowing, roads flooding and traditional homes collapsing as the rain moved westwards.

Mozambican damage

The weather system was caused by a cell of low pressure off the coast of Mozambique, which suffered extensive damage in some of its southern provinces.

About 100,000 people were reported to have been made homeless by floods in the capital, Maputo, and the neighbouring industrial town of Matola.

Further north, hundreds of thousands of people are reported to have been left homeless in Gaza province.

Flooding in Sofala has made Mozambique's main north-south road impassable in several places, cutting transport links between the capital and the second city, Beira.

There are reports of shortages of clean drinking water and food supplies.

Fears are also being expressed of possible wide scale outbreaks of cholera, typhoid and malaria across the region.

Although Southern Africa normally enjoys its rainy season at this time of year, the storms have been unexpectedly heavy and have caught local people unaware.

---

Click here to return