now more than 250 people have died in
devastating flooding in the south
african city of durban and the
surrounding area
days of record rainfall have also left
thousands of homes destroyed roads and
bridges and other critical
infrastructure have been damaged by
floods and landslides hampering rescue
efforts the military have helped to take
residents to safety in the worst
affected areas south african president
cyril ramaphosa visited durban on
wednesday
uh we'll go to durban then and join dw
correspondent adrian kriesch welcome
adrian um tell us more about the the
situation there in the city and its
surroundings
well it's bad phil and uh to me it's
particularly sad how many children were
affected where i'm standing right now
you can see behind me where the
landslide is happening this was the room
of ten year old ayanda that collapsed on
her she passed away um her family just
told me about it they're obviously
devastating and just next to it the
camera and just turn it is another place
um that collapsed the neighbor's place
where a grandmother stayed with three
children only one of the kids survived
all the others died the youngest one was
just three years old and as you drive
through durban today you can see this
devastation and these kind of landslides
all over the place on several
different areas so it is likely that the
death toll will continue to increase as
the rescue works continue
and was the city prepared for this this
massive rainstorm
well obviously not prepared enough some
city officials even said it took us by
surprise how strong the storm and this
rain falls where some critics are
already complaining that the drainage
systems were not in place that there was
not a proper investment into the
infrastructure in the past year so this
might have accelerated this catastrophe
there should be however keep on saying
the major issue was landslides so they
tried to push away the responsibility
but what is clear that this area has
seen those events in the past it is a
weather occurrence that has been
happening here in the past years 2019
for example also 60 people died when a
similar weather occurrence came to this
area as well but it's all over southern
africa that especially this year we're
seeing an increase in number of these
natural hazards cyclones tropical storms
we've seen almost 200 people killed in a
tropical storm in madagascar in february
and march and scientists are saying that
this is clearly in relation to the
global climate change we're seeing more
intense rainfalls we see these
catastrophes and this is something also
south africa's president cyril ramaphosa
mentioned here he also said that this
event what we're seeing here now is part
of climate change right and so what help
is the government providing
so as we speak cyril ramaphosa just came
to visit this place here he went to
several locations um the president
himself to talk to the resident to see
what the needs are it is likely that
they're going to declare a state of
disaster for the entire province to
facilitate and help on a national level
as well but we've heard also critical
voices from residents here who said well
when we had the last disasters here we
got lots of promises and little happened
many people are still waiting for for
new houses ever since then so some are
not so optimistic on the other hand we
do see that help is coming in here
mattresses are brought in relief
organizations are trying to help those
who are affected of this disaster and at
the moment the government says the key
priority is to get shelter for those
thousands of people who became homeless
overnight thank you for that adrien
adrian kriesch in durban