Flooding hits Cape Town, cleanup begins in KwaZulu-Natal

Clean-up operations have started on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast where 10 people died in floods in the past week and more than 4000 left displaced from their homes.

"At this stage, four people are still missing," said Brian Dube, spokesman for the Ugu district municipality on the south coast.

He said rescue services managed to get access to flood-hit areas on Thursday to assess the damage caused by heavy rain that started in the province on Monday.

"We were able to go out on an air force chopper to assess the damage. What we found, is that most of the damage was to the road infrastructure and about 10 bridges had been washed away," Dube said.

"With the weather subsiding and access to roads becoming better, some of our rescue operations managed to go in and remove some of the road blockages."

He said it was too early to put a cost to the damage.

At least a thousand people were displaced by the floods and received shelter at local police stations and community halls.

The Durban Weather Bureau said the heavy downpour had broken four rainfall records, one of them dating back to 1964.

Heavy rains have left more than 4 000 people living in informal settlements homeless in the Cape Peninsula, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Friday.

The affected areas include Samora Machel, Kosovo and Guguletu.

Those displaced have been accommodated in community halls and provided with blankets and meals.