On Wednesday, heavy rains and resulting flooding were confirmed to have killed over 300 people in KwaZulu-Natal province on the eastern coast of South Africa, including the large port city of Durban.
The flooding delayed rescue efforts by the South African National Defence Force, though it managed to deploy some helicopters and personnel according to General Rudzani Maphwanya. Authorities were working to restore electricity to the area.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said: "This disaster is part of climate change. It is telling us that climate change is serious, it is here … We no longer can postpone what we need to do, and the measures we need to take to deal with climate change."
eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality was heavily damaged. Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda said it was hard to reach power and water facilities. Sipho Hlomuka of the Executive Council for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs in KwaZulu-Natal said: "The heavy rains have affected power lines in many municipalities with technical teams working around the clock to restore power."

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!
Share this: 






This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
South African floods kill at least 300 people