Government will spare no expense in rebuilding KwaZulu-Natal after the province was hit by devastating floods that left more than 250 dead.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, who visited the province on Wednesday, told crowds in Ntuzuma he would ask finance minister Enoch Godongwana for more resources to provide relief in the area. He said this could be one of the worst disasters the region had ever faced.
He was accompanied by members of his cabinet including cooperative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and KZN premier Sihle Zikalala.
“This is a catastrophe of enormous proportions and we need to act with haste to assist affected communities. We are working to gazette declaring KZN a provincial state of disaster so we can do things quickly. Our bridges have collapsed, our roads have collapsed. People have died, our people are injured, so this is a catastrophe of enormous proportions.”
As the country watched residents from KZN picking up the pieces on Wednesday, the death toll rose to 259 with one family losing 10 members in the disaster.
KwaZulu-Natal police chief Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi told reporters the number of deaths is “way more” than what is being reported by the media.
“We are dealing with a state of disaster. Within the police we are co-ordinating with disaster management and other agencies in rescue efforts.
“We have really had to run around in eThekwini to deal with all the bodies. The number is way more than what the media is reporting, we are going to make it official.”
He said as there was a limited number of mortuary vans, “police have to play a role in transporting these bodies because there is just not enough”.
Mkhwanazi said private security companies have assisted the police and an additional 300 police officers from other parts of SA were due to arrive in the province on Wednesday.
No sector of the KZN economy was left untouched, including the hospitality and freight, sectors who are expected to feel the effects of the floods into the usually lucrative Easter holidays this weekend and beyond.
Umhlanga and Surrounds Tourism chairperson Heather Hunter said the most pressing issue for them was road access. “Bridges have gone and some of our B&Bs have had a number of cancellations due to the weather. Aside from that, we’ve got staff that can’t get to work and some of them were personally affected by the floods,” she said.
Hunter added that usually around Easter weekend, guesthouses would be fully booked but there was a huge cleanup job that needed to happen. “We’d usually have events at our beaches but now we’ve got all this debris and trash that’s flown all the way down. Our beaches from Durban to the South Coast have been closed off,” she said.
Brett Tungay, chairperson of the Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa, said he could not quantify the impact of the floods in their sector just yet.
“Not many tourism properties have been impacted. Road access was affected and we’re waiting on authorities to help out with that and we’re also waiting on the municipality to commence with beach cleanup.
Meanwhile, the Road Freight Association (RFA) suspended all freight trucks from going to Durban as many of them were seen stuck on the N3 between Pietermaritzburg and Durban on Tuesday.
RFA CEO Gavin Kelly said: “Marianhill plaza has a [truck] backlog of 10km all the way to Hammarsdale, and the problem is that [according to the Road Traffic Inspectorate] the local communities are now targeting the trucks and looting. Access roads around the port have been damaged, container yards, truck depots and trucks themselves have been flooded and damaged and the area is really a disaster at the moment.”
Kelly said their logistics operations have been impacted by the stoppage, adding there would be delivery disruptions for imported goods. — Additional reporting by Suthentira Govender
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