South Africa: Flood death toll rises to more than 250

GBNews24 Desk//

At least 259 people were killed in South Africa’s eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal after devastating floods wreaked havoc in the area, officials announced on Wednesday. The latest figure eclipses the previous number of 59 fatalities reported by government.

Earlier on Wednesday, the province’s health chief Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu told local news station eNCA that late on Tuesday over 250 bodies had been received at mortuary facilities.

“As of late last night, we had received something close to 253 bodies in our two different mortuaries,” Simelane-Zulu said. The minister confirmed the figure when asked by the eNCA reporter and said they were directly linked to the floods.

That number rose a short while later with the spokeswoman for disaster management confirming that the number had now hit 259 deaths, Deutsche Welle reports.