Durban — Residents in Bellamont Road, uMdloti, said they feel safer in their homes now, even though they still have anxiety whenever there is heavy rain, but the construction has been excellent.
Residents in Bellamont Road, north of Durban, were hit by mudslides during the April 2022 floods, which caused homes to collapse and wash away. Residents believed that the sand was from a property development at the top of a hill overlooking the uMdloti residential area.
They said they were impressed with the eThekwini municipality with the way it had handled the floods, including the engineers.
Judy Khoury said they were grateful to everyone who had supported them. She said this when she was speaking to the City mayor Mxolisi Kaunda on Tuesday morning during his site visit when he was assessing progress the City has made to repair infrastructure that was damaged during the floods in April last year.
Khoury added that everything had been repaired in record time, “From the people of the unit and uMdloti we just want to say thank you. We are grateful to everyone who assisted because it was devastating to the owners here because we lost 34 units, which was a huge loss for us,” she said.
A resident who wanted to remain anonymous said she feels safe in her property because of the excellent work done by the City to reconstruct the drainage system. “I think they have done a wonderful job in the entire reconstruction and demolishing of the buildings that were partially destroyed,” she said.
She said the whole drainage had been working well. Moreover, some houses that were damaged during the floods were unoccupied as they had been condemned, according to the Coastal Stormwater and Catchment Management.
During his site visit, Kaunda went to uMlazi U section to hand over a three-bedroom house, with an open-plan kitchen and a bathroom to 76-year-old Frostina Ndawonde, whose house was washed away during the floods. Ndawonde said if she was not a prayer warrior she would have lost her family during the difficult times. “I am grateful that no one was hurt and I did not lose my family,” she said.
Kaunda said now that they had confirmed that R1.5 billion was available they would complete the work on the damaged infrastructure which they had been unable to complete because of limitations. “We had to use limited resources to respond and ensure that we are on the ground to fix the damaged infrastructure,” he said.
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