Richtersberg Campsite under water

[Boerra]

https://youtu.be/OqZFDM3F6Oc

[Tobie4x4]

Poor guys, hope they were not injured. You have to be careful where you pitch camp.

[FWM]

That must be a frightening experience

[clivemd]

Hope all ok, yup camping in dry river bed, all looks fine and nice to camp, but you don’t know what happened up stream with rain, flash floods take you out very quickly

so many hikers also get killed in those dry river canyons in the states

[Commander]

Wow, thats scary...

[Dirk]

Very scary, one can just imagine the chaos if this had to happen in the middle of the night.

(I think it was a very brave move to get that Jeep out, that could have turned ugly quickly.)

[iandvl]

Hope all ok, yup camping in dry river bed, all looks fine and nice to camp, but you don’t know what happened up stream with rain, flash floods take you out very quickly

so many hikers also get killed in those dry river canyons in the states

The Richtersberg camp site is a defined camp site on the banks of the Orange. I doubt that the people were camping in a dry river bed.

That is besides the point. I hope all are OK.

[Patrick L]

Lucky folks to have got out unharmed -looks like they were completely surprised by this.

Good to remember this incident for future summer camping spot selection in the area!

I imagine this is the stream which comes perpendicularly into the camp -and is the same stream that used to be a closed track RT6 -RT11 ( or RT 8-RT12?) to get to Richtersberg more directly. Did the ablution block wash away?

[Patrick L]

nice map of richtersveld

[bostoe]

The Richtersberg camp site is a defined camp site on the banks of the Orange. I doubt that the people were camping in a dry river bed.

That is besides the point. I hope all are OK.

There is a connecting "dry river" at Richtersberg and I can imagine that it can cause havoc. It looks like they camped on a sand bank, but was cut off by the water. The bank could have been swept away.

Dangerous!

Bostoe

[C Africa]

On the video you can see that the water break just above the camp collapsed, and that is what let the water through there.


C

[jfh]

There is a connecting "dry river" at Richtersberg and I can imagine that it can cause havoc. It looks like they camped on a sand bank, but was cut off by the water. The bank could have been swept away.

Dangerous!

Bostoe

That looks like the dry river is in flood.

[C Africa]

See here? Clearly broken.


C

[Alberto]

https://youtu.be/OqZFDM3F6Oc

ons het 8km daarvan gekamp op de hoop en besluit om terug te keer die 3de des agv kwaai winde en sand storms , en oor eksteensfontein ,helskloof pas en na viljoensdrif te kamp,toe ons helskloof net oorsteek ,toe begin dit te reen en in minute toe loop daai water daai berg af en gou gou het die 2 spoor pad begin water vat ,so dit moes kwaai op die rigtersberg omgewing gereen het wat soos die kraai vlieg nie so ver waar ons was nie

daai water het in die pad afgekom soos 'n mens van kokerboom kloof afkom wat dan reguit in die camplek uitloop ,as jy net uitry ,draai jy regs af na de hoop oor die ou berigte sand pad ,,so ek dink niemand het gedink dat dit sou gebeur nie want as jy daar was sal jy nie agterkom dat jy eindelik in 'n rivier loop \pad is nie ,hoop die mense is ok .

[Alberto]

kyk mooi hoe loop die daai pad in rigtersberg camplek in ,daai water het daar begin bymekaar kom en reguit in die camplek uitgeloop ,so dit was net bad luck en ek glo niemand het dit verwag nie ,

[jfh]

I agree. The river will rise slower and if it's not midnight you will see it and have some time to get away.
But the dry rivers don't give warnings.

This is the one you use to get to De Hoop.

[Alberto]

when we was at de hoop, the river was higher due to the rains up the gauteng area ,that rain came down early midday ,i am going to try and get the pic my wife took when we got at the helskloof pass ,to get the time ,it just started to rain when she took the pic

[jcvdwalt]

This was Richtersberg days before. The caravan in the video was parked just to the right of where the LC in the picture is:



Water came from this direction:

[Alberto]

on top of the helskloof pass , minutes later at the bottom ,it looked like this ,cannot see the time but it was around 14h 00

[Hylton]

All I could think was stop filming, pack up the caravan and tent that were still ok , get that jeep out of the water and get to safety. That looked like a very scary situation.