As the figures of the body counts now stand at 306, one family has lost 10 family members. President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke to one of the family members. The Mdlalose family suffered a major loss in the heavy rains in KwaZulu-Natal which resulted in flooding, bridges collapsing, malls and warehouses flooded, houses damaged, and vehicles and scores of people swept away.
On Wednesday, Nonkululeko Mdlalose spoke to president Cyril Ramaphosa as he visited KwaZulu-Natal to access the damage that had been caused by the floods. Mdlalose, who was in tears, told the president how she has lost ten of her family members on Monday night.
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“I think they were all sleeping because the incident happened at about 11 p.m. at night,” Mdlalose said. She said it seemed that the neighbours’ mortar home crumbled as the storm was raging on and in the process it descended on their home which also collapsed, sweeping everyone down the hill resulting in instant death.”
Mdlaose told Ramaphosa that ten of her family members were swept away. Only Nonkululeko and her sister survived, because they were not at home when the incident happened.
“We found our mom and three of her grandchildren (almost immediately) … We then found the others, but the last of the grandchildren we only found on Tuesday night. Our mom was lying alongside our neighbour down by the riverbed.”
Source: Times Live, ENCA, image from Times Live of Nonkululeko Mdlalose with President Ramaphosa
