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Gebeurtenis EVT-000284

Die 1926-droogte: 6,3 cm reën in die jaar

1926 · regional · Beaufort West

A disastrous drought across South Africa, with Beaufort West among the worst hit along with Vanrhynsdorp and Namaqualand. SIX POINT THREE CENTIMETRES of rain fell in the whole year, against an average of 20,32 cm. Boreholes at the low end of town weakened; over the next two years fruit trees and quince and pomegranate hedges parched. The council put unemployed men on relief work, and De Kerkbode reported people "practically starving". These are BEAUFORT WEST's records, about 91 km from the centre of the ground this project maps, and the article makes no statement about Klaarstroom or the Koup farms. What makes them worth having is that they are the same rainfall regime and the nearest place where somebody wrote the weather down year by year. Read as regional context, not as a record of what fell on these farms. [SRC-262] [25 Aug 2026] The diary (SRC-586) fills in the district's answer: three and a half years without rain; food handed out because there was no money; the Afdelingsraad setting relief roadwork in the wyk Zeekoegat so farmers could earn near home; the Meiringspoort verleggings of these years lifting the road above the flood mark; and when rain came in 1929, government loans of 200 pounds each to restock. On Droogekloof the trek to the Langkloof brought 1,500 of 5,000 sheep and goats through (SRC-585).

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