Nearly 90 people are still missing two
months after the worst floods in living
memory swept through South Africa’s
third-largest city of Durban and
surrounding areas, killing hundreds, the
government said Sunday.
The death toll from the raging floods and
landslides has climbed to 461, with 87
people still unaccounted for, southeastern
KwaZulu-Natal provincial government
premier Sihle Zikalala told journalists.
“The floods affected 85,280 people with
461 fatalities. A total of 87 people are still
reported missing,” Zikalala said in media
briefing marking two months after the
floods raged across the province.
The April torrential downpours, blamed
on extreme weather triggered by climate
change, caught by surprise the country
traditionally untouched by storms which
regularly hit its neighbour like
Mozambique.
More than 300 mm of rain fell within a
24-hour period in some parts of the
province — nearly a third of Durban’s
annual rainfall- smashing a nearly three
decade record.
The deluge triggered the worst mudslides
seen in the country, sweeping away
people, buildings bridges, roads and
buildings.
“By all account the KwaZulu-Natal floods
have been described correctly as the most
devastating floods in our history thus far,”
said Zikalala.
He said more than 27,000 houses were
affected with 8,584 of them totally
destroyed.
The floods struck the region less than a
year after deadly riots that killed more
than 350 people, most of them in Durban,
a port city of more than 3.9 million
people.