Watch: Massive flooding leaves trail of disaster
Severe flooding was reported across the city and several roads were temporarily closed.
Mini-flooding in the City of uMhlathuze led to chaos on Monday as rescue teams scrambled to attend to road, home, accident, electrical and business emergencies.
No deaths were reported but extensive damage was caused.
ALSO READ: Warning of heavy, disruptive rain in parts of Zululand
Staff at Little Junior School at the ZCBF Community Park spent half of Monday in clean-up operations after the school was ankle deep in water after the weekend’s heavy rainfall.
Principal Anna Mari Joubert said they arrived to find a strong flowing stream had entered their premises, damaging the property.
They had to make holes in their boundary walls to allow the water to escape, and dug trenches to reroute the water flow.
Due to the constant rainfall, water ran downwards to their premises at the end of the saturated ZCBF Park grounds.
‘After attempting to divert the water off the premises, we stacked up sandbags to stop further flooding but the harm had already been done as our classroom and office furniture all have water damage.
‘We had the areas near the boundary walls, dredged to allow the water to travel out via another route and we will have to look at repairing our walls once this is over.
‘Due to the clean-up operation lasting most of the day, we advised parents to collect their children as a safety precaution and we hope to have this resolved as soon as possible.
‘We are appealing to any businesses to help us with a donation of sand bags which we can place in and around the entrance of the building to prevent a recurrence,’ said Joubert.
Meanwhile, properties in an around Richards Bay suffered extensive damage and there were also cases of live wire shocks.
Ward Councillor Henning de Wet reported that a monkey was electrocuted after touching a street light pole, while a child had also been shocked after stepping into water that carried electrical current.
Severe flooding was reported across the city and several roads were temporarily closed.
Visiting a flooded scene at Apiesdoring in Arboretum, Councillor Christo Botha said a property was extensively damaged and tenants living in a granny flat were counting their losses as all their furniture suffered water harm.
A sinkhole damaged a complex property at Tassel Berry in Arboretum and water was turned off as teams worked to repair the infrastructure.
At Haakdoringrug in Arboretum, a recently repaired culvert gave way under the force of water and properties below the damaged area were flooded.
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