By Omotayo Edubi
Police, army and volunteer rescuers widened, on Friday, the search for dozens still missing five days after the deadliest storm to strike South Africa’s coastal city of Durban in living memory as the death toll rose to nearly 400.
With the government coordinating the search-and-rescue operation, the official number of people still missing in KwaZulu-Natal province stood at 55.
A fleet of cars and helicopters carrying police experts had set out early Friday to comb through a valley in Marianhill suburb, west of Durban, to look for people reported missing in the flood.
It is an increasingly desperate search for survivors.
Travis Trower, a director for the volunteer-run organisation Rescue South Africa, said his teams had found only corpses after following up 85 calls on Thursday.
The floods, which affected nearly 41,000, left a trail of destruction and at least 395 people dead, regional head of the disaster managing ministry Sipho Hlomuka said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa — recalling the Covid 19 pandemic and the deadly July riots, described the floods as “a catastrophe of enormous proportions not seen before in our country.
“Just as we thought it was safe to get out of (the Covid) disaster, we have another disaster, a natural disaster descending on our country, particularly on our KwaZulu-Natal province.
“The floods have cause a lot of devastation a lot of havoc,” he said.
“Let us pray for our people in KwaZulu-Natal so that they receive the healing that is required… so that they can get on with their lives,” Ramaphosa told El-Shaddai Tabernacle church congregants in the eastern town of Ermelo.
Thousands of survivors, left homeless after their houses were destroyed, are being housed in shelters scattered across the city, sleeping on cardboard sheets and mattresses on the floors.
Housing minister Mmamoloko Kubayi, told reporters 13,593 houses have been damaged, with nearly 4,000 of them totally destroyed.
Meanwhile volunteers, with gloves and trash bags, fanned across the city’s beaches to pick up debris left by the massive storms ahead of an expected surge of Easter weekend holidaymakers.
Software manager Morne Mustard, 35, was among the scores of volunteers, who included children, picking up debris and broken reeds from Durban’s famous Umhlanga beach.
“This is my local beach where I bring my kids, and this is where we spend our weekend, so this is for our community,”he said.
He roped in workmates, families and friends to help clean up as beach restaurants offered free breakfast for the volunteers.
Recalling the day the rain fell, Mustard said, “It didn’t feel real, absolute devastation, a horrendous sight, stuff spilling out on the beach must have come from someone’s house… brooms and mops, household utensils, it was such a heart sore to see.”
Some of Durban’s poorest residents have been lining up to collect water from burst pipes and dug through layers of mud to retrieve their scant possessions.
Ramaphosa declared the region a state of disaster to unlock relief funds.
Speaking to reporters, finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said an initial tranche of a billion rand ($68 million) in emergency relief funding was immediately available.
Weather forecasters said apocalyptic levels of rain were dumped on the region over several days.
Some areas received more than 450 millimetres (18 inches) over 48 hours, or nearly half of Durban’s annual rainfall, the national weather service said.
The South African Weather Service issued an Easter weekend warning of thunderstorms and flooding in KwaZulu-Natal.
“According to the warning that we have received, damaging winds are forecast for areas along the coast from midday (Friday) into Saturday evening,” said Hlomuka, adding disaster teams were on “high alert”.
Over 4,000 police officers have been deployed to help with relief efforts and maintain law and order amid reports of sporadic looting.
The Durban port, , state logistics firm Transnet, one of the southern hemisphere’s largest, resumed shipping operations on Thursday afternoon, after closing during the floods.