South Africa: Language Matters for Disaster Warnings - This Community Didn't Get Useful Flood Alerts

In an age of instant communication, it is easy to assume that everyone receives disaster warnings. Smartphones buzz, sirens sound, alerts flash across screens. But for millions of people who speak minority or Indigenous languages, the message often stops short.

South Africa has 12 official languages, but disaster warnings are still sent out almost entirely in English and Afrikaans. Emergency SMS alerts, radio broadcasts, and social media posts are issued regularly, but these are one way communications - the municipal (local government) disaster management centres sending the messages don't check whether the people receiving them understand what they say. A warning that is sent is not necessarily a warning that is understood.

We study disaster management and languages, respectively. In our recent study, we wanted to understand whether people in an informal (shack) settlement in South Africa had received early warnings of disaster, and how readable and understandable these messages were.

We spoke with 300 residents of Walmer Airport Valley in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape. We thought it was an ideal setting because it's located in a flood-prone area with warnings of floods sent out regularly. With 27,000 residents, Walmer Airport Valley is a dense informal settlement of corrugated-iron shacks set up just metres from the local airport's runway, where narrow dirt paths wind between homes. All residents there speak isiXhosa, one of South Africa's official languages.

Our research found that the clearer a warning message is, the more likely people are to act on it. This matters especially for people with less formal education, who get messages in languages they may be less likely to understand.

We argue that if disaster warnings are not reaching the people intended to receive them - a community highly exposed to flooding - then the system has a problem that costs lives.

South Africa's disaster management agencies, municipalities, mobile phone operators and community radio stations should work together to design plain-language warnings in local languages with communities, and make free emergency alerts reach every mobile phone. They should also formally make community radio part of the early warning system, because the current approach sends messages that millions of people simply cannot understand.

Why many isiXhosa-speaking residents miss life-saving alerts

Residents told us that the most common disasters in Walmer Airport Valley were thunderstorms, fires and floods. While most people had a basic understanding of disaster risks and emergency situations, many