Africa-Press – South-Africa. As the KwaZulu-Natal death toll nears 400, President Cyril Ramaphosa has called for prayers for flood-stricken people in the province during a Good Friday church address.
As rescuers widened the search for dozens still missing five days after the disaster struck the southeastern coastal city of Durban and surrounding areas, the official toll rose to 395 dead.
“Let us pray for our people in KwaZulu-Natal so that they receive the healing that is required… so that they can get on with their lives,” he told El-Shaddai Tabernacle church congregants in Ermelo.
KZN saw eight new rain records on 12 April, with Margate doubling a high set 25 years ago
He said the floods were “a catastrophe of enormous proportions that we have not seen before in our country, that so many people can die”.
Ramaphosa said he had visited a family who had lost 10 members, including children.
“That was one of the saddest moments I experienced, even as president,” he said during the service broadcast live on some television networks.
He said the pain and suffering that the relatives of victims had experienced “will last for years because some of them just saw their family members just being swept away by the water, as they watched unable to rescue them, reaching out with their hands to hold them, but the power of the water just took them away”.
The floods in KwaZulu-Natal have affected some 41 000 people.
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