(Durban) After being hit by deadly floods, South Africa on Tuesday began assessing the destruction of a week of severe weather in the Durban region on the east coast, with initial damage estimates amounting to several hundred million euros.
Posted at 1:14 p.m.
At least 448 people were killed, according to a new report released in the evening. A previous toll reported 443 dead.
“Five new bodies were found today,” said provincial chief minister Sihle Zikalala on the spot. “The worst floods we have ever seen,” the minister in charge of disaster management, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, lamented earlier.
Heavy rains and landslides have caused chaos in the agglomeration of the port city of 3.9 million inhabitants, epicenter of the disaster in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN): rutted roads, collapsed bridges, ripped pipes .
President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a state of national disaster on Monday, which should allow the release of exceptional resources.
The emergency services remain mobilized. Helicopters are still flying over the city in search of dozens of people who are still missing. The influx of corpses has put the morgues under pressure.
Throughout the day, ministers visited schools, health facilities and severely damaged infrastructure. “The main challenge is water,” Health Minister Joe Phaahla said as he walked out of a hospital where patients use buckets to wash and flush the toilet.
Residents have been deprived of drinking water for eight days, 80% of the network has been impacted, according to local authorities. Nearly 4,000 houses were razed, more than 13,500 damaged. Tanker trucks are trying to transport reserves to the populations, but some areas remain inaccessible.
The authorities said they had restored electricity almost everywhere but the country is plagued by new load shedding, the public company Eskom with aging infrastructure being unable to meet the country’s needs.
Air support
About 10,000 soldiers, including plumbers and electricians, are being deployed to help with the rehabilitation. Air support has been reinforced, in particular to transport goods. Troops were sent to distribute cisterns and install water purification systems.
Some 270,000 pupils did not return to class after the Easter long weekend. More than 600 schools have been affected. At least 27 million euros will be needed just to rebuild the buildings, said Education Minister Angie Motshekga, also on the spot.
The port of Durban, one of the main maritime terminals in Africa and the keystone of economic activity in the country, is once again operational.
But between 8,000 and 9,000 containers are currently waiting to be unloaded. Extensive damage to the road linking the port to the rest of the country and the continent prevented the daily passage of 13,000 trucks of goods.
Many companies have seen their equipment and sites destroyed.
Authorities expect hundreds of millions of euros in damages. A first estimate for the repair of road infrastructure alone amounts to nearly 354 million euros (482 million CAD).
The government had already announced last week an emergency fund of 63 million euros (86 million CAD) for the region which has already experienced massive destruction in July during an unprecedented wave of riots and looting.
Some are already worried about possible embezzlement of aid, in a country with a long history of corruption: “there must be absolute transparency and full disclosure of how these funds are distributed in order to ensure that ‘they reach the communities for which they are intended,’ claimed Karam Singh, of the NGO Corruption Watch.
South Africa, faced with an unprecedented natural disaster, is generally spared the bad weather that regularly hits its neighbors such as Mozambique or Madagascar.