THE DEADLIEST STORM:
When disaster struck in KZN

KwaNdengezi father carries son's body for 10km, joins sea of families desperate for help

By Juniour Khumalo and Kayleen Morgan

"The body will end up decomposing and smelling."

These were the sombre words of Sizwe Mbotho, a diminutively framed middle-aged man, who stood next to the body of his six-year-old son, Khethokuhle, covered in a white sheet, waiting desperately for hours for emergency services to assist. 

He had walked 10 kilometres carrying his son after the little boy lost his life when the Mbotho family home in the Dassenhoek Area, KwaNdengezi, collapsed due to a landslide amid catastrophic flooding that wreaked havoc in KwaZulu-Natal. 

News24 found Mbotho desperately trying to flag down police cars and the very few emergency services vehicles that passed by the road.

All the responses were the same: "We are rushing to other areas where dozens of people have lost their lives there." 

^{Photo by Kayleen Morgan, News24}

As KZN picks up the pieces, we look at recent floods that battered the province

By Lisalee Solomons

Before this week, the most devastating flood to have occurred in KwaZulu-Natal took place in September 1987, when the Mgeni and Mvoti rivers flooded. The death toll stood at around 400, with 50 000 displaced.

^{Photo by Gallo Images}

How a husband braved KZN's horror floods to rush his pregnant wife to hospital to give birth

By Iavan Pijoos

Rebecca Woodstock's water broke around 18:00 last Monday. In a panic, her husband, Sean, gathered the pre-packed hospital luggage and loaded it into the car. 

What followed was a hair-raising trip to the hospital as flood waters gushed down a hill in Umdloti, KwaZulu-Natal, when heavy rains submerged parts of the province.

'It's physically exhausting and mentally draining’: The emotional toll of searching for bodies after KwaZulu-Natal floods

By Nicole McCain

"All the rescues have been done. That's the part that we love. Now the emotional part sets in: it's time to recover bodies."

Paramedic Leon Fourie was just one of many rescue crew members working to recover the bodies of people trapped by landslides or washed away in raging rivers in KwaZulu-Natal this week.

Authorities said that more than 300 people had died in devastating flooding in the province, but with recovery efforts still underway, this number could climb even higher.

Rescue worker Travis Trower had helped carry the body of a woman hundreds of meters up a steep bank on Wednesday when he heard a sound that would bring a lump to his throat even a day later. Instead of wailing with grief, the woman's family broke out into song, the notes of "How Great Thy Art" echoing down the embankment.

^{Photo by Kayleen Morgan, News24}