Bad Weather Continues as Flooding Plagues KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

A severe storm system that moved through east South Africa on the night of 25 February 2016 caused substantial damage to the region of KwaZulu-Natal; a region that has unfortunately seen a great number of lightning deaths and injuries over the past few months.

During this storm, rains and winds were so heavy and intense that they brought schools, churches and homes to the ground. KwaZulu-Natal Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, says they have deployed disaster management teams to areas affected the most by the storm.

Heavy rains destroyed over 100 houses in Ntake, to the west of Durban. In Windolene, Marianhill, multiple houses collapsed while occupants were still inside. 12 homes also collapsed because of the moisture and strong winds in Sand River in Ladysmith. The below photo provided by Earth Networks PulseRad shows the high rainfall amounts for the region in just a short time span.

This storm also brought over 10,000 dangerous lightning strikes with it, as well. At this time, the death toll due to lightning for this storm alone stands at 5. The below video shows the Total Lightning Detection provided by Earth Networks during the strongest hours of the storm.

Both in-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning (which combine to account for all lightning strikes) were in the mix for this storm. The red box centered on Durban, South Africa outlines the area where all five of the lightning deaths took place as the strongest band of lightning moved northward up the coast.