At least 45 people have been killed after intensely heavy rainfall in South Africa. Officials said homes have been ravaged and roads swept away in Durban, a coastal city in the east of the country, on Tuesday.
The provincial government in KwaZulu-Natal province, which confirmed the number of dead, said the toll could rise further.
Heavy rain was expected to continue until evening in the coastal parts of the province. Disaster management teams were evacuating people in areas hit by mudslides and where buildings had collapsed, officials said.
Several homes were washed away and several roads caved in, which affected transportation and rescue operations. People carried some salvaged possessions to safer places as muddy waters gushed across streets.
The rains in KwaZulu-Natal also flooded a dam beyond capacity, making it impossible to operate a hydroelectric generator at power utility Eskom, boss Andre de Ruyter said in an online briefing.
South Africa’s biggest logistics and freight operator Transnet, which runs the Durban port, paused operations across its terminals there as the floods damaged a road and blocked access to the terminals.
Floods around the coastal city of East London in January killed at least 10 people and left hundreds homeless…