‘We prepared for a natural disaster – just not this one’
Botswana was overwhelmed by the rapidly changing climate. As the world gets warmer, and its weather less predictable, it will not be the only one.
Keletso Thobega in Gaborone
Rain is a scarce and precious resource in Botswana, a mostly arid country. This scarcity has fuelled a collective yearning for rain that is fundamental to Batswana culture. The pula, Botswana’s currency, is named after the Setswana word for rain. At public gatherings or ceremonial occasions, there is always someone who will begin chanting “Pula!”, while the crowd responds with “A e ne!” – Let it rain! In particularly dry years, it is not unusual for the president to ask the country to come together to pray for the heavens to open.
Last week, nearly half a year’s worth of rain fell in 24 hours.
In Gaborone and surrounds, it rained until cars began to float down the streets of the capital. It rained until bridges and walls collapsed, and people were swept away by the rising waters. Fifteen people were killed. It rained until the Gaborone Dam, which just a few months ago was two-thirds empty, began to overflow.
“After a prolonged period of drought caused by El Niño, the rains were influenced by the remnants of Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi, which came from Mozambique and South Africa,” said John Stegling, the chief meteorologist of the Botswana Meteorological Service. “There were public alerts about the incoming floods, but perhaps the public did not anticipate the severity of the rains.”
El Niño is a regular weather phenomenon that leads to drought across the southern hemisphere. In a bitter irony, Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi is named for the Setswana word for “tears”. These cyclones are a regular occurrence, but usually lose their energy when they hit Madagascar and Mozambique. Stronger ones, like Dikeledi, make it further inland — Gaborone is 800km from that coast — and a hotter world means warmer oceans and more energy to power cyclones.
“Changing climatic conditions and weather patterns are causing extreme weather such as excessive heat and heavy rainfalls,” concluded Stegling.
For the people caught in the floods – anxiously awaiting rescue from disaster response teams, and very wet – it felt like a scene from a movie about the end times, and was just as unexpected.
“It was a scary sight,” said Abigail Segokgo, who woke up in her home in Tlokweng to find water seeping in through the front door. “I rushed into one of the bedrooms and called for help through my phone.” The water damaged her furniture, as well as parts of her yard and front walls.
Tshepo Morebodi, a poultry farmer in Mochudi, lost 100 chickens to the floodwaters. “I nearly collapsed when I went out and saw that all my chickens had died,” he told The Continent.
“There was water all over the yard. I also lost a goat and my dog drowned in the water. I wanted to go out and save my animals but it was pouring down and I was worried about my safety.”
Come rain or shine
Botswana’s government has spent many years, and many millions of dollars, preparing for natural disasters – just not this kind of natural disaster. The state’s attention, informed by decades of meteorological data, was focused instead on responding to drought.
In 2017, the World Bank approved a $145.5-million loan to help improve the availability of water in drought-prone areas. In 2022, the government published a 78-page National Drought Plan that outlined, in detail, how the government would prepare vulnerable communities for when the rains failed.
Botswana did not anticipate – or prepare for – floods.
The heavy rains exposed major vulnerabilities in urban drainage systems, according to Boitumelo Pauline Marumo, a climate communications specialist. “It has become apparent that parts of the city and surrounding villages are on flood paths, exposing poor urban planning. Additionally, flooding and infrastructure damage led to road closures in four districts, an apparent lack of resilient structures.”
“We were caught off guard,” said David Lesolle, a climate change policy adviser. He is advocating for the government to implement a much more comprehensive response policy – one that can respond to any kind of disaster. “No one knows for sure how the erratic rainfall patterns are going to turn out when the climate goes extreme. Over the past years we have observed changes from extreme drought, heat extremities and super wet weather, so we have to prepare for whatever might come.”
For years, climate scientists have been saying that a warming world will lead to more extreme and unpredictable climate events. Last year was the warmest in Earth’s recorded history, with temperatures averaging 1.55°C above pre-industrial levels, and there is no sign of that trend changing.
It does not help that the world’s richest country and largest polluter – the United States – has just withdrawn from international efforts to slow down the pace of climate change. This almost certainly condemns Botswana, and the rest of the planet, to a future of more extreme droughts, floods and storms.
Given the erratic nature of these disasters, it is very hard to predict – and plan for – exactly what is coming. More rains are expected this week.