Many families who lost their kin to the devastating floods in KwaZulu-Natal in April — some witnessed their loved ones being swept away — are struggling to move forward, waiting for bodies to be found or identified.

The floods killed more than 400 people, left more than 40,000 homeless and destroyed more than 12,000 houses.

Read more in Daily Maverick: “KZN flood disaster: ‘Water was quickly rising and I saw that my house would fall’ ”

Infrastructure, including roads, bridges, railway lines, schools, clinics and hospitals, was destroyed and is yet to be fixed.

The remains of a home on a cliff at eNkantini informal settlement in Cato Manor, Durban, after the April 2022 floods. (Photo: Mandla Langa)

Thousands of people who lost their homes are still living in community halls and other facilities, waiting for the government to keep its promises to provide them with alternative accommodation.

Some of the families told Daily Maverick about the pain they had endured. They accused officials of a lack of empathy and not acting speedily to ensure that families find closure.

Ten family members swept away

One such family is the Mdlaloses, who live in the Phola section of Inanda. Ten family members were swept away when their home collapsed. Six were found and buried, but four are still missing or their bodies are in government mortuaries, waiting for positive identification.

North Coast Road in Durban, where parked cars were washed away by the floods. (Photo: Mandla Langa)

Thokozani Mdlalose said his sister, Slindile Mdlalose, and her children and grandchildren were among those swept away by the floodwaters.

“We believe that water supply pipes from above their home were destroyed by the floods and they in turn let go of water that swept away my sister’s family home and that of her neighbours, who also lost three family members,” he said.

A few days after the floods, SANDF soldiers, members of the SAPS and emergency workers retrieved the bodies of six of his family members from the Mpophomeni River, including his sister, one of her daughters and one of her grandchildren.

“They were in advanced stages of decomposition. Some of the bodies had maggots and we could hardly identify them.”

A fuel storage tank bobs around on the debris-strewn shoreline at Blue Lagoon in April 2022. (Photo: Shawn Herbst)

A few days after the mass funeral, emergency workers discovered three more bodies in the area, which have yet to be identified by means of DNA tests.

Mdlalose said his 17-year-old nephew and 27-year-old niece survived because they were not home at the time. “They are now squatting with relatives; they have nothing — everything was washed away.

“As a family, we don’t know whether we should start moving on with our lives or wait for the recovery of the lost bodies. We are numb,” said Mdlalose.

He said the family had received neither support from the government nor counselling.

The Mdlaloses were among the families of flood victims that picketed outside the Phoenix government mortuaries, urging the government to speed up the process of DNA analysis.

DNA samples collected

In KwaCutshwayo, about 32km from the Durban CBD, the Hlophe and Ntuli families lost 13 family members, including a 65-year-old grandfather and an eight-month-old baby, when their hillside homes were washed away.

None of these victims has been found.

A drone image of the extent of the damage caused by flooding in Prospecton, Durban on 13 April 2022. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed)

Snenhlanhla Hlophe (28) said she was not home when the tragedy struck. She lost her only child, one-year-old Hlelolwenkosi, in the flood. She said that in June DNA samples were collected from her and her other surviving family members by health workers and other government officials. But they have not heard anything since.

“We were taken for counselling about two times. Every day we live with the trauma of not knowing what happened to our loved ones. It is better when you are able to bury … to have closure. I still have this lingering hope that I will wake up with my son sleeping next to me,” she said.

Also part of a mortuary picket in June and July was the family of Nolusapho Mhlongo (17), who was on her way home from school when she was swept into the Mpophomeni River near uMzinyathi. Her body was discovered a few days later.

Caversham Road in Pinetown, KwaZulu-Natal on 22 May 2022 after a second flood in the province within six weeks. (Photo: Gallo Images / Darren Stewart)

Samukelisiwe Mhlongo, Nolusapho’s mother, tearfully described how she identified her daughter from dozens of flood victims.

“Her head was in bad shape, but I could still recognise her. But they did not give her body to us to bury. Since then, we have been sent from pillar to post. We have met in person [the then KZN Premier] Sihle Zikalala; we have met top health officials. They gave us the numbers of pathologists in Pretoria and we called the number again and again without any help.

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“We have also tried to engage private pathologists, but still we cannot get them to release the body of my daughter so that we can give her a dignified funeral. She is lying in the mortuary. The pain that we are going through as the family is indescribable.

“We have been promised this and that, but nothing has happened. Now, we don’t know who to trust,” said Mhlongo.

On 13 April, fishermen at Isipingo Beach found the body of a baby boy, believed to have been swept away by floodwaters. It is still unclear, almost eight months later, where the body came from. No one has come forward to identify the body, which is among dozens waiting to be claimed at a government mortuary.

KZN police spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Nqobile Gwala said the police had tried to locate the baby’s family.

“He is one of the flood victims’ bodies still in the government mortuary. Initially, there were some leads, but nothing came of them.

“We are still appealing to the members of the public who have missing family members to come forward and identify them. The DNA samples will be sent to pathologists and if they match, the bodies will be released to them,” Gwala said.

KZN Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube said last month that the government was sympathetic to what the families of the victims were going through and was doing everything it could to ensure families found closure.

She said at least 27 bodies recovered from the floods had not been identified.

“We understand the frustration the families have about the pace of the DNA services. We are doing our best to get the DNA services completed timeously to enable families to find closure,” said Dube-Ncube. There was very little the provincial government could do to speed up DNA and pathology tests, she said. DM