Relief supported by helicopters continued Thursday to remove bodies from the rubble of the unprecedented floods that have hit South Africa for four days, a new toll having increased in the evening to 341 dead and 41,000 people affected.
“The intense rescue phase is largely over. Currently, our job is mainly to recover bodies,” Travis Trower, who leads rescue teams, told AFP. Originally from the region, he confessed to witnessing “the worst disaster in 20 years” in the province of Kwazulu-Natal.
Most of the victims were recorded in the region of Durban, a large African port open to the Indian Ocean and the epicenter of the heavy rains which began last weekend. A state of disaster has been declared.
“A total number of 40,723 people have been affected. Unfortunately, 341 deaths have been recorded,” provincial minister Sihle Zikalala said at a press conference on Thursday. He spoke of an “unprecedented devastation of human lives and infrastructure”.
Currently, our work consists mainly of recovering bodies
Men and women drowned, children and babies died buried in landslides. More than 100 bodies were deposited last night at the Phoenix morgue on the outskirts of the city.
“It’s too much,” said one of the employees who wished to remain anonymous. He described lines of families coming to bring their dead. Burials have been banned until the waterlogged ground stabilizes.
The rains, which reached levels not seen for more than 60 years, washed away bridges, roads and isolated much of the region. More than 250 schools have been affected, thousands of homes destroyed. Authorities expect hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.
The region has already experienced massive destruction in July during an unprecedented wave of riots and looting.
UN Secretary General António Guterres said on Twitter that he was “deeply saddened by the loss of life”.
Left to themselves
Thousands of people were left homeless, twenty emergency shelters were opened. Some sleep on chairs or on pieces of cardboard on the floor. Waiting to be rescued, survivors felt left to fend for themselves. “There is no one here who can help us,” said Thobele Sikhephen, 35, in front of his mud-filled sheet metal house in a township.
Sporadic protests have broken out calling for help. The City of Durban called for “patience”, with relief operations being slowed “due to the extent of the damage on the roads”.
Cleared with diggers, some axes have been reopened, but most roads are still inaccessible, strewn with debris or drowned in brownish water. The authorities have asked people to avoid all contact with this potentially “contaminated” water as much as possible.
In some areas, water and electricity have been cut since Monday. In the township of Amaoti, north of Durban, where most homes are made of corrugated iron sheets or wooden planks, clusters of people filled buckets with clean water drawn from exposed pipes after the collapse of a gigantic stretch of road.
“People come from everywhere to get water,” Tbani Mgoni, 38, told AFP in the middle of the crowd.
Local authorities have appealed for donations of non-perishable food items, water bottles and anything else that could keep you warm. Looting has been reported.
Weather forecasts predict thunderstorms and localized flooding risks for the Easter weekend. These new bad weather should also affect the neighboring provinces of the Free State (center) and the Eastern Cape (southeast).
Some southern African countries are regularly plagued by deadly storms during the hurricane season from November to April. But South Africa is generally spared from these extreme weather events.