South Africa still faces drought and water shortages despite torrential rainfall bringing death and destruction in recent days, experts said on Thursday. Record rains in the Western Cape caused millions of rands worth of damage, flooding caravans and houses and cutting electricity and water supplies, South African media said, with helicopters plucking some to safety. Recent storms in the commercial capital Johannesburg have seen several people swept to their deaths as flash-flooding turned normally gentle streams and storm drains into raging torrents. Only weeks after widespread worries of drought, South African Weather Service forecaster Lee-ann Clark said some areas saw as much as 200 mm (7.8 inches) of rainfall in 24 hours on Wednesday, and that although the worst was past, more rain was expected in the days ahead. "We're going to see more damage, particularly in places like informal settlements (shanty towns) that have very poor drainage," she said. --More 1846 Local Time 1546 GMT
