The tragedy that befell South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province seems far from over, as communities have again, been hit by another wave of the fatal storms.
In the past days, KZN witnessed one worst incidents of flooding in South Africa’s history, with over 400 lives lost and still counting. Several roads, houses and other infrastructure destroyed and left to lie in devastating ruins.
Emergency response teams have been on high alert to mitigate impacts of the disaster, as the South African Weather Service continue to predict more doom for the province, which will be aggravated by the already existing damage caused by the floods and mudslides.
“It’s already raining in some parts of KZN but it won’t be as hectic as it was in the past few days. But because of the soil being oversaturated with water, we can still get a lot of flooding,” said Puseletso Mofokeng, a senior forecaster at the South Africa weather service.
According to Shawn Herbst of Netcare 911, “there is still damage taking place, especially with the rain we are experiencing today which is aggravating the areas that have been damaged.”
Herbst also added that Disaster Response teams have continued to recover more bodies in the tragedy, especially from rural areas.
Over 13,500 houses have been reportedly destroyed, while over 4000 totally wrecked beyond repairs.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has described the tragic incident as a “a catastrophe of enormous proportions … not seen before in our country.”
The SA government, while paying a visit to the risk areas, blamed the disaster on the impact of climate change, contrary to opinions by critics who believe it is as a result of bad drainages and poor infrastructure put in place to control such occurrences.
The government has also announced that 1Billion rand ( £52m) has been released as support for the emergency support funding.