South Africa: Roads blocked by heavy and rare snowfall

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Unusually heavy snowfall caused major disruptions on South African roads on Saturday, with people still stranded at midday after spending the night in their vehicles. The N3 national highway, which links Johannesburg to the east coast city of Durban, was one of the worst hit, with several sections closed, with even diversions impassable, authorities said.

Emergency services have been working through the night and are still working to help people stranded in their vehicles, but it is still unclear how many there are and what condition they are in, highway concession manager Thania Dhoogra told ENCA television. Blankets and meals have been delivered to some stranded motorists, the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government said in a statement released at midday.

Three border posts with Lesotho closed

Trucks have been parked on the side of the road since Friday, and “buses travelling between provinces have been stuck at petrol stations for about seven hours,” Simon Zwane, head of communications for RTMC, the country’s main road safety management body, told AFP. In some areas, snowfall reached up to two metres, road safety organisation Arrive Alive on X reported.

South Africa’s border authority said it had closed three border posts with the tiny kingdom of Lesotho in the west due to “significant danger” caused by “current conditions”. More snowfall is expected and warnings are in place for several parts of the country, a forecaster with the South African Weather Service, Luthando Masimini, told AFP, calling it an “extreme case”. Outside of the danger zones, the rare phenomenon has delighted some South Africans, who are excited to see snow for the first time in many years.



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