South African municipalities have activated emergency preparedness and response measures as severe weather affecting five provinces has already claimed several lives, the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) said on Tuesday.

The South African Weather Service warned that cold, rainy, windy and snowy conditions would persist from Tuesday to Thursday across the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, North West and Free State provinces.

At least three fatalities have been reported, including two people swept away by floods in the Northern Cape and North West, and a 12-year-old child who died in a separate flooding incident.

Mthobeli Kolisa, SALGA's chief officer for infrastructure delivery and spatial transformation services, told Xinhua that municipalities have mobilized resources, including snow-removal equipment, rescue services and temporary shelters for displaced residents.

"We communicate with municipalities and support them to ensure that services are delivered at the scale required by what is happening," he said, adding that increasingly frequent extreme weather highlights the need for a nationwide civil defense system to complement local disaster management efforts.

Meanwhile, hundreds of schools have suspended classes for two days as a precaution.

South Africa has experienced repeated deadly floods in recent years, including incidents earlier this year in Limpopo and Mpumalanga, and a major flood in the Eastern Cape's Mthatha last year, which claimed over 100 lives.