Damaged roads and bridges hamper aid for S. Africa flood victims

Victims of South Africa's deadliest storm on record scrambled to get help on Thursday as relief teams struggled to cross bridges and roads wrecked by floods and landslip.

At least 306 people died when the heaviest rainfall in six decades swept away homes and destroyed infrastructure in the city of Durban and KwaZulu-Natal province.

The government has declared the region a state of disaster to unlock relief funds.

But with key roads and bridges washed away, relief workers battled to reach the hardest-hit areas, which have been without water or electricity for up to four days.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, in a visit to the region on Wednesday, described the floods as a "calamity... a catastrophe of enormous proportions."

Thousands of people have been made homeless and around 250 schools damaged.

Authorities said they had established 17 shelters to accommodate over 2,100 displaced people.

Sporadic protests erupted in some areas over slow restoration of services and lack of relief.

Durban city government appealed for patience.

"We understand the frustration and anxiety of our residents," it said in a statement.

"We are working as quickly as we can. Our teams are hard at work to resume services. However, it may take a while to fully restore all services because of the extent of the damage to access roads."

The government of KwaZulu-Natal has also put out a public call for aid, urging people to donate non-perishable food, bottled water, clothes and blankets.

- Appeal for shelter -

But many survivors said they had been left to fend for themselves.

In Amaoti, a township north of Durban, residents balanced precariously on the embarkment of a collapsed road, trying to fetch clean water from a broken pipe underneath.

"We don't have water, there is no electricity... people from (everywhere) are coming to get water," Thabani Mgoni, 38, told AFP in the midst of the crowd.

Philisiwe Mfeka, a 78-year-old grandmother, said her water supply stopped on Tuesday.

Even water from the fractured pipe was being rationed to one bucket per person, with children, some as young as 10, coming to fetch one bucket each.

Volunteers said they were desperate to find food, clothes and other essentials.

In a pitch-dark hall in Durban's Glebelands dingy apartment block, volunteers used the torches from their cellphones to register scores of displaced people overnight.

"We are just helping the people because we care," said Mabheki Sokhela, 51, who helped organise temporary shelter at a community hall.

He urged fellow residents to provide a roof for the victims. "There is not enough space," he said.

Many victims slept on chairs or on cardboard on the floor.

A mortuary worker at the Durban township of Phoenix said more than 100 corpses had been brought in.

"Last night there was queue of people bringing bodies. It's too much," the worker said, asking not to be named as he did not have permission to speak to the media.

Burials have been banned until the wet ground stabilises.

- Brutal storm -

The storm was so severe that crocodile breeding ponds overflowed as perimeter fences fell down, allowing 14 reptiles to escape. They were recaptured a day later.

Weather experts say apocalyptic levels of rain were dumped over several days.

Some areas received more than 450 millimetres (18 inches) in 48 hours, amounting to nearly half of Durban's annual rainfall of 1,009 mm, the national weather service said.

The storm caught South African authorities unprepared.

The South African Weather Service has issued an Easter weekend warning of thunderstorms and localised flooding in KwaZulu-Natal and neighbouring Free State and Eastern Cape provinces.

The country is still struggling to recover from the two-year-old Covid pandemic and deadly riots last year that killed more than 350 people.

Without official aid, Durban flood victims dig themselves out
Durban, South Africa (AFP) April 14, 2022 - Entering their fourth day without power or water, Durban's poorest residents lined up on Thursday to collect water from burst pipes and dug through layers of mud to retrieve their few possessions.

There was a sense of despair amid the stench of sewage, growing stronger as the rains which wrought so much devastation stopped and the tropical heat returned.

Thobele Sikhephe, 35, smoked a cigarette in his mud-filled shack, near the carcass of his broken refrigerator.

"This place here is a mess. I don't know how I'm going to fix this up," he said. He and his wife, who is six months' pregnant, only took a few belongings before fleeing the gushing water.

Their home is made of corrugated iron. Plastic bags serve as windowpanes. The mud inside the house is ankle deep.

"We don't have a place to sleep, we don't have something to eat," Sikhephe said.

With more than 300 confirmed dead, officials have yet to estimate the number of missing.

The devastation is most severe in areas like Mega Village, where people who could not afford conventional housing built shacks on land left vacant because it is not safe for construction.

Many unwittingly stake their livelihoods and families on a floodplain. Those living closest to the river returned to find nothing but a widened riverbed.

"I only took my driver's license and my ID card and went away. I left everything behind," said Petros Ndala, 59, standing among contaminated sacks of rice and baskets of clothes that were salvaged from the mud.

A few items look easily retrievable: a lime-green laundry basket, a trainer, and a steel pot with a lid that stayed on. These are the last traces of a community that has now scattered.

Ndala's house is still standing, but without power or water, he does not know how to clean up.

- 'We are on our own' -

Ben Motshwa, 32, said he not only lost his home but his printing and clothing business too.

"My machines were all flooded, they were swept away. So I don't have anything right now," he said.

He said he hoped the government would provide grants for small businesses to rebuild.

But many were dubious that any aid would be forthcoming.

"There is no government, there is no one here who can help us," Sikhephe said.

Sikhephe said many residents were promised government housing following previous floods in 2017 and 2019.

"Nothing happened," he said.

Officials are working to restore access to far-flung communities like Mega Village. Roads and bridges are so badly damaged that rescuers are battling to reach areas that are marginalised at the best of times.

Now, Sikhephe and his pregnant wife were among dozens of people sleeping on the concrete floor of a community hall converted into a temporary shelter, he said.

The shelter was offered up by residents from the nearby Glebeslands hostels -- an area of apartment blocks notorious for crime.

Still, people pressed ahead, using muddy river water to wash the clothes and linens they were able to dig out of their homes. One home with a working stereo blasted up-beat dance music as people carried around scraps of metal and wood.

Outside Ndala's house, a woman wearing a light brown dress abandoned her flip flops after they were sucked into the muddy streets, continuing barefoot instead.

"Since this thing happened, no one came" from government, she said.

"If there is no one wanting to come and see how we are coping, that's another problem.

"We are on our own."

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'Everything is gone': S.Africa's flood victims search for shelter
Durban, South Africa (AFP) April 13, 2022
Disoriented and in disbelief but alive, a crowd of people who watched their homes wash away amid devastating floods in South Africa's coastal city of Durban queued to register for temporary shelter Wednesday. "Everything is gone," repeated Sinethemba Duka, 31, over and over, sporting a grey floppy hat and a salmon coloured golf shirt - having salvaged only a few pieces of clothing. More than 300 people have been killed since rains, the heaviest in six decades, wreaked havoc on the city and surr ... read more