The KwaZulu-Natal government will close all mass care centres on Saturday, meeting its deadline to relocate flood victims before Christmas.

This emerged during a media briefing by premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube in Durban on Friday. 

The province also hosted a Christmas lunch for the recently relocated communities at the Astra building and O’ Flaherty building in Reservoir Hills.  

Last month, the province announced it would relocate all flood victims from community halls before Christmas.

More than 460 people were killed in the April floods while thousands were displaced. More than 70 people are still missing.

The province set up 135 mass care centres in eThekwini metro and uMgungundlovu, iLembe, Ugu, King Cetshwayo district municipalities.

Dube-Ncube said the relocation of communities in these centres to transitional emergency accommodation (TEA) facilities started in October.

All the centres were closed in Ugu, uMgungundlovu and King Cetshwayo. 

Five in eThekwini and two in KwaDukuza closed on Friday.  

“This leaves us with seven to do and 128 already closed. The remaining seven are in eThekwini and are scheduled for closure [on Saturday],” she said. 

“So as committed, all mass care centres will be shut down before Christmas, enabling us to meet our deadline of relocating flood-displaced communities to the more decent TEAs. 

“We are not breast-beating but telling the honest truth when we say in eight months we have led efforts to help the province recover.

“We have come a long way to get the province to stand again. We have connected services that were disrupted, rebuilt major roads and infrastructure, got the economy moving, assisted families who lost loved ones and restored dignity to those rendered homeless.”

 TimesLIVE