Floods flooded parts of the eastern coastal city of Durban this week, clearing roads, destroying hospitals and sweeping away homes and those trapped inside. Emergency services in the southeastern province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), where Durban is located, have been on high alert as meteorologists forecast more rain this weekend. (Al Jazeera) “The death toll has risen to 398, with 27 people still missing,” a government official said on Saturday, adding that 58 hospitals and clinics had been “severely affected”. Recovery and humanitarian aid operations are underway in the city of 3.5 million people that would normally be full of Easter holidaymakers this weekend. “It is already raining in some parts of the KZN, but it will not be as turbulent as it was in the previous days,” Puseletso Mofokeng, a senior meteorologist in South Africa, told AFP. “But because the soil is too saturated with water, we can have a lot of flooding,” he warned. Between 25 mm (one inch) and 45 mm (1.75 inches) rain was expected on Saturday, compared to more than 300 mm (11.8 inches) that fell within 24 hours in some areas on Monday. The latest rains, which have left at least 40,000 people homeless, without electricity or running water this week, are expected to continue until early next week. “We do not have water, electricity, even our phones are dead. “We are stuck,” said Gloria Linda, who was sheltered under a large umbrella on a muddy road in the town of Quantengesi, about 30 miles (20 miles) inland from Durban. Disaster management teams said they were “on high alert to respond quickly to communities known to be at high risk to prevent or minimize the effects of the disaster.” “Unfortunately, there are still corpses being retrieved from homes, especially in rural areas,” said Shawn Herbst of first responder Netcare 911. “There is still damage, especially with the rain we are experiencing today.” Neighbors watch as a South African Police Search and Rescue Unit uses tracking dogs while searching for unidentified individuals in the Kwandengezi area outside Durban on April 15, 2022. [Phill Magakoe/AFP]
“Another disaster”
The floods have damaged more than 13,500 homes and completely destroyed about 4,000. Authorities have urged people in high-risk areas to move to community facilities such as classrooms and schools. Clean water is scarce and authorities have promised to develop tankers. In Umlazi, one of the country’s largest municipalities south of Durban, flood victims were huddled under blankets in a community hall, while others formed long queues for food and water donations from charities. “What makes me angry is that this situation always happens,” said Mlungeli Mkokelwa, a 53-year-old man who arrived in the village a decade ago to look for work he had never found. “Our belongings continue to be destroyed by constant floods that must be dealt with by the authorities. “No one ever comes back with a plan to solve it.” The government has announced a billion rand ($ 68 million) in emergency funding. South African billionaire and head of the African Football Confederation (CAF) Patrice Mochepe has donated what he called a “humble contribution” of 30 million rand ($ 2 million). “Our people are suffering. “We really want the 30 million to be spent urgently,” Mochepe said, announcing the donation to Zulu King Misuzulu Zulu in a hall housing displaced people.
Finding survivors, retrieving bodies
Six days after the first floods hit, hope of finding survivors is now waning, and Durban Emergency Medical Services spokesman Robert McKenzie said the response was focused on recovery and humanitarian aid. “There has been a shift in response to the emergency as we move from the emergency phase to the disaster recovery phase,” he said. Survivors are still desperately looking for missing relatives. “We receive calls constantly on a daily basis. “Yesterday 35 calls were made and six bodies were retrieved,” said Travis Trower, director of the Rescue South Africa volunteer organization. South Africa, the continent’s most industrialized country, is also struggling to recover from a two-year COVID pandemic and deadly riots last year that killed more than 350 people, mostly in the flood-hit southeastern region. “It simply came to our notice then [the COVID] “We have another catastrophe, a natural disaster that is affecting our country,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a speech on Good Friday. The floods are “a catastrophe of enormous proportions; it has never been seen in our country”.
