South Africa flood toll rises to 443 in deadliest flood and worst rains in 60 years – “This is a catastrophe of enormous proportions”
17 April 2022 (AFP) – The death toll from floods that have battered South Africa’s east coast has risen to 443, including a rescuer, a regional official said today, as dozens more are still missing.
“The death toll now stands at 443,” Sihle Zikalala, the premier of the KwaZulu-Natal province told a media briefing, adding 63 other people are still unaccounted for.
A member of the rescue and recovery team “experienced difficult breathing and was airlifted to… hospital. Unfortunately he passed away”.
Rains were starting to let up in the flood-ravaged east, allowing for search and relief aid operations to continue after one of the deadliest storms in living memory.
Mr Zikalala said the “inclement weather has slowed our assessment and rescue operation on the ground, but we are once again back in the full swing”.
Floodwaters engulfed parts of the southeastern coastal city of Durban and surrounding areas early last week ripping apart roads, destroying hospitals and sweeping away homes and those trapped inside. […]
Christians congregated at churches across the city and further afield to offer prayers for those affected by the floods as they celebrated Easter Sunday.
“It’s a tragedy of overwhelming proportions,” said Thabo Makgoba, the Archbishop of Cape Town in his Easter message, a day after he visited Durban.
“The community is suffering severe emotional stress and pain,” said Mr Makgoba, successor to Desmond Tutu.
Government, churches and charities were marshalling relief aid for the more than 40,000 people left homeless by the raging floodwaters.
The government has announced an immediate one billion rand ($68 million) in emergency relief funding.
Hospitals and schools destroyed
Deputy Social Development Minister Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, said some 340 social workers had been deployed to offer support to traumatised survivors with many still missing children and other relatives.
Most casualties were in Durban, a port city and a major economic hub.
Parts of the city have been without water and electricity since Monday after floods ripped away infrastructure.
Scores of hospitals and hundreds of schools have been destroyed.
The intensity of the floods took South Africa, the most economically advanced African country, by surprise.
While the southeastern region has suffered some flooding before, the devastation has never been so severe.
South Africans have previously watched similar tragedies hit neighbouring countries such as cyclone-prone Mozambique.
These floods have forced President Cyril Ramaphosa to postpone a working visit to Saudi Arabia that was scheduled to begin Tuesday.
The loss of hundreds of lives “and thousands of homes, as well as the economic impact and the destruction of infrastructure, calls for all hands on deck,” said Mr Ramaphosa.
The country is still struggling to recover from the Covid pandemic and deadly riots last year that killed more than 350 people, mostly in the now flood-struck southeastern region. [more]
South Africa flood toll rises to 443 as deluge eases
South African flood victims search for bodies of lost loved ones
LINDELANI, South Africa, 15 April 2022 (Reuters) – Bonakele Mtshali was away at a funeral when flash floods on South Africa’s east coast swept her iron-roof shack off the hillside in Lindelani township, taking two of her girls with it.
She had been searching with a growing sense of foreboding since Monday’s disaster. Then her elder son, Zamani, 23, got a call on Thursday from some other townspeople who had discovered a body by the river. It was Baphiwe, her 17-year-old.
Mtshali’s daughter was one of about 400 people, possibly more, killed in extremely powerful rains that battered the coast, leaving about 13,600 people homeless and numerous families in mourning for lost relatives.
There is no sign of Mtshali’s 11-year-old daughter, Ntwenhle. She has lost hope of finding her alive in her township by a river on the outskirts of Durban, the port city at the epicentre of the floods that have upended the lives of 40,000 people.
“I feel numb, blank and still empty,” she told Reuters at the wreckage of her home which had collapsed into a pile of rubble falling into a gash in the earth.
“There is nothing I can do except to keep looking for my youngest so that they can both be buried together. I don’t think I can recover,” she said, staring wistfully into the distance. “The loss is too deep.” [more]
South African flood victims search for bodies of lost loved ones
