Glad to be alive but burdened by the deaths of loved ones and neighbours as well as the trauma of their own narrow escape, Durban’s impoverished residents must pick up where the floods left off.
When heavy rains struck Durban for five days in September 1987, resulting in flash floods, 506 people ended up dying. Buildings collapsed, at least 14 bridges were washed away and cemeteries were destroyed. Sinkholes appeared all over Durban. The floods damaged over 30,000 houses and left more than 50,000 people homeless. The total damage to infrastructure was estimated at R7 billion.
The South African Weather Service said the amount of rain that fell in Durban on Monday 11 April was equal to that “normally associated with tropical cyclones”. Mmeli Sokhela, 39, can attest to the destructive consequences. He was still dazed and in a state of disbelief days after the floods. It took his neighbours more than two hours to extricate him from the rubble. He was still hopeful that, perhaps, his children had somehow survived. “But sadly I lost all four of them,” said a grief-stricken Sokhela.Thulani Gumede, 45, a resident of Inanda Glebe, lost everything as devastating flood waters swept through the neighbourhood. Gone is his two-room shack with all of his family’s belongings, including their identity documents and birth certificates.
Gumede was living in Inanda during the 1987 floods, but this disaster is far worse, he said. “We only see these things, like tsunamis, on television screens happening in other countries. But this time around it was happening all around us. Unbelievable.”A few kilometres away in Ntuzuma, residents said they could not believe it when they saw bodies floating around from the cemetery in Lindelani.
“In my 24 years of working here, we have never worked so hard, we have never picked up so many bodies,” said the worker, who asked not to be named as he is not allowed to talk to the media. “The phones have been ringing non-stop and community members want us to pick bodies, multiple ones, at a time.”
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