“Never before seen” floods in South Africa caused at least 395 deaths and 55 disappearances

The devastating floods that have hit South Africa for five days caused nearly 400 deaths and 41,000 people affected, according to a new balance released this Friday, as the macabre search for the many missing persons continues.

Most of the victims have been recorded in the Durban region, a port city of Kwazulu-Natal (KZN) facing the Indian Ocean, where the heavy rains that began last weekend were concentrated.

“A total of 40,723 people have been affected. Unfortunately, the death toll continues to rise and the latest record is 395 deaths,” the province's disaster management office said in a statement.

Army helicopters and more than 4,000 police officers were deployed in search and rescue tasks, as at least 55 people are still missing. But first responders have little hope of finding survivors.

“The intense rescue phase is partly over. Today our job is mainly to recover bodies,” Travis Trower, a member of the rescue teams, told AFP agency.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, who was in Mpumalanga (northeast) on the occasion of the Easter holidays, lamented a catastrophe “never seen before in the country”.

Weather forecasts announce storms and risk of localized flooding during the Easter weekend.

New storms are also expected to hit the neighboring provinces of Free State (central) and Eastern Cape (southeast), where “one dead” has already been recorded, according to Ramaphosa.

“Devastation”

The rains, which reached levels never seen in more than 60 years, knocked down bridges and roads and isolated much of this coastal region from the Indian Ocean. More than 250 schools were affected and thousands of homes were destroyed.

During the morning, volunteers with gloves and garbage bags began cleaning the beaches of Durban, which are usually full of families and tourists.

“It's my beach, where I take my kids and spend our weekends,” explains Morne Mustard, a 35-year-old computer scientist, who is one of the volunteers on the popular Umhlanga beach.

He survived the flood and says that there is “an absolute devastation, a horrendous spectacle”, listing all kinds of objects and debris carried by the waters towards the beach.

Around 4,000 houses have been destroyed and more than 13,000 damaged, so thousands of people have been found homeless, according to the ministry of the branch. The authorities announced the opening of some 20 emergency shelters housing more than 2,100 homeless people.

In some areas, water and electricity have been cut off for several days. Desperate people have been seen trying to extract water from the shattered pipes and the authorities declared a state of catastrophe.

The day before, there were sporadic protests demanding help. In a statement, the Durban authorities called for “patience”, explaining that relief efforts slowed down “due to the extent of the damage to the roads”.

Local authorities called for donating non-perishable food, bottled water and anything to heat.

There were also looting and images from surveillance cameras shared on social media showed people storming supermarket shelves.

Southern Africa regularly experiences violent storms during the cyclone season from November to April. But South Africa is often spared these extreme weather events that form over the Indian Ocean.

(With information from AFP)

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