The heaviest rains of the last 60 years have hit the municipality of Durban, eThekwini in Zulu. According to an AFP report, the storm is the deadliest recorded in South Africa. “Currently, the confirmed number of people killed in this disaster is 259, in the province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN),” Nonala Ndlovu, a spokeswoman for the provincial disaster management department, told AFP. South African President Cyril Ramafosa described the floods as “catastrophic” and “catastrophic”. “The bridges have collapsed. The roads have collapsed. “People are dead; it’s a huge disaster,” he told a local community after inspecting the flood damage. The search for the missing is still ongoing, Ramafosa said, vowing to “do nothing” to tackle the disaster. “This catastrophe is part of climate change. We can no longer postpone what we need to do. To tackle climate change. “It’s here and our disaster management capacity needs to be at a higher level.” South African President Cyril Ramafosa speaks to grieving family members at the United Methodist Church of South Africa in Clermont, near Durban, on April 13. Photo: Phill Magakoe / AFP / Getty Images Earlier, Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu provincial health chief expressed concern about the huge death toll, telling eNCA television that “the dead are under a little pressure, but we are enduring.” The United Methodist Church in Clermont County has been reduced to rubble. Four children from a local family lost their lives when a wall collapsed on them. Other houses hung unsafe on the hillside, miraculously still intact, as much of the ground beneath them was washed away by the mud slides. The storm forced the main port of sub-Saharan Africa to close, as a major access road was severely damaged. Ship containers were thrown away, washed in metal mountains. Parts of other roads were washed away, leaving behind cracks in the ground larger than large trucks. “We see such tragedies affecting other countries like Mozambique, Zimbabwe, but now we are the victims,” Ramafosa said as he met with grieving families near the church. South Africa’s neighbors suffer such natural disasters from tropical storms almost every year, but Africa’s most industrialized country is largely protected from storms that form over the Indian Ocean. Residents are rescuing everything they can from the damaged houses in Durban after floods and landslides. Photo: Phill Magakoe / AFP / Getty Images These rains were not tropical, but were caused by a weather system called low cuts that brought rain and cold weather to much of the country. When the storms reached the warmer and wetter climate in Durban’s KZN province, it rained even more. “Some sections of the KZN have received more than 450 millimeters (18 inches) in the last 48 hours,” said Dipuo Tawana, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service – nearly half of Durban’s annual rainfall of 1,009 mm. The rain continued in parts of the city on Wednesday afternoon and a flood warning was issued in the neighboring province of Eastern Cape. Durban had just recovered from the deadly riots last July, which claimed more than 350 lives, in South Africa’s worst unrest since the end of apartheid. The national police force deployed an additional 300 officers to the area as the air force sent planes to assist in rescue operations. Rainy days flooded several areas, smashed homes and destroyed infrastructure across the city, and landslides forced train disruptions across the province. The rains flooded highways to such an extent that only the tops of the traffic lights, which looked like underwater periscopes, appeared. Torrents tore down many bridges, sank cars and collapsed homes. A tanker floats in the sea after being swept off the road. More than 6,000 homes were damaged. Following television footage showing people stealing from ship containers, the provincial government condemned “reports of container looting” during the floods. The southern parts of the country are suffering the brunt of the climate crisis – suffering from repeated and worsening torrential rains and floods. Floods killed 140 people in 1995.
