Catastrophic floods in Durban, South Africa, have left more than 300 residents dead in the wake of the horrifying force of nature that has been attributed to climate change that many have been protesting for years.
At 8:00 p.m. on Monday, Mthobisi Gasa, a South African, struggled to cross a bridge that was left submerged in water due to powerful rain in order to get to his home in Inanda. The man, a 24-year-old retail trainee, trekked through waist-high water for over an hour and had to form a human chain with strangers to avoid being washed away.
South Africa Floods
But when he reached his two-bedroom home, Gasa was devastated to see that his door was unable to open. When he looked through the window, he saw that the inside was completely filled with water. Gasa forced the door open and the entire front portion of his house collapsed immediately.
"I decided to save important things and then watched my entire house fall. The floods have destroyed me," said Gasa. The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs said that heavy rains have swept away many homes in the region and sunk highways and flooded bridges, as per Aljazeera.
On Friday, the KwaZulu-Natal regional government warned residents that there could be more rain and damaging winds expected across South Africa's east coast in the coming days. The government, following a brief rain-free interval on Thursday, said that it received a warning from the South African Weather Service regarding "disruptive rain" and "damaging winds."
The local government described the recent turn of events as "one of the darkest moments in the history" of the KwaZulu-Natal province. A spokesperson, Lennox Mabaso, said that the death toll from the storms has risen to as high as 395.
According to CNN, in a statement, the regional government said that more than 40,000 residents have been affected by the floods in one way or another. They added that they were expressing their gratitude for the ongoing support that the province was receiving from various sectors.
Consequence of Climate Change
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa toured the devastated region on Wednesday and said that the severity of the downpours was further proof of the consequences of climate change around the world. The official said that the rains showed how serious climate change is and argued that the world could no longer postpone what it needed to do.
The country's national weather service said that the KwaZulu-Natal province the country experienced the heaviest-single day rain in the last 60 years in recent days. Another resident of Durban, Boniswa Shangase, said the people of the region have been traumatized and were unable to eat.
Shangase said that when the water quickly rose around the hillside where her home was found, which is where she was raising her two daughters, she quickly jumped out the window before it gave way. She said that she and her children were not homeless and were unable to live in the area any longer, Yahoo News reported.
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