OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Wednesday
RAGING flood waters have swept away three people, left more than 3 000 homeless and disrupted end-of-year exams in KwaZulu-Natal as torrential rains lashed the region, officials said.
Richard’s Bay town clerk Tonie Heyneke said the three were telecommunications workers who were crossing the bridge over the Mzingazi River in the northern port town in pickup trucks when it was washed away, leaving only broken railings.
Divers searched for the missing men for hours, but strong currents forced them to abandon their search late afternoon until the weather improved.
Some 700 people were reported to have fled their homes in the region, and another 2 300 were forced out elsewhere in the province.
Hundreds of people, mostly women and children, were housed in church and community halls where they were given blankets and food by provincial officials and Red Cross volunteers.
The flooding disrupted end-of-year school examinations, with the army trying to deliver test papers by armoured car, helicopters, and four-wheel drive vehicles.
Two schoolboys risked swimming across a swollen river with exam papers on their heads, an education spokesman said.
The flooding had struck the same low-lying northern parts of KwaZulu-Natal that were hit by cyclone-driven floods that swept through southern Africa in February and March, devastating neighbouring Mozambique.
In the low-lying Mtunzini area south of Richard’s Bay, 317mm of rain had fallen since Saturday. St Lucia had been drenched by more than 509mm of rain between Saturday and Tuesday morning.
Beeld newspaper reported that a six-year-old boy drowned in Emadulini when he fell into a swollen stream and one person died in a car crash in heavy rains near Empangeni.
Defence force spokesman Louis Kirsteyn said the air force had been on full alert to rescue flood-trapped people since the weekend when the rains began, but bad weather had kept them grounded.
KwaZulu-Natal education department spokesman Mandla Msibi said there were 15 schools in the province that were completely inaccesible, even to the army’s trucks.
According to Beeld newspaper roads that were still under repair from the February flooding – which caused damage of more than R76m – have again been submerged.
The Pretoria weather bureau also forecast heavy rain over southern Mozambique, including the capital of Maputo. – AFP