Jabulile Zikode was pottering around her five-roomed home in Inanda, north of Durban, when her children ran indoors from the soccer field screaming about the wind and rain.
When she looked outside, she saw papers swirling in the air and sensed danger.
Her first thoughts flew to her mentally challenged mother, sitting inside.
“The roof sheeting was flying off. I tried to pick my mother up, but I slipped and fell. She started shouting and screaming, and then the children started screaming. My mind went blank.
“It literally turned dark. Somehow, I carried my mom to the other room while water was gushing down on us and our possessions started flying out of the house,” said Zikode.
The unemployed mother of four, who ekes out a living selling chips, sweets and ice cream, said they huddled together for about 30 minutes while the storm raged around them, praying the walls would not cave in.
When all went quiet, Zikode summoned the courage to venture out, crying at the devastation caused by the torrential rain and landspout which uprooted roofs, trees, and walls.
Heavy rain on Tuesday, measuring 30mm in Durban to 178mm on the south coast, claimed four lives, with one person still missing, and left scores displaced or with badly damaged homes.
The roof sheeting was flying off. I tried to pick my mother up, but I slipped and fell. She started shouting and screaming, and then the children started screaming. My mind went blank
— Jabulile Zikode, mother of four from Inanda
The SA Weather Service (SAWS) said the spinning vortex of wind which tore down walls, swept up roofs, gates and even moved containers was a landspout.
The phenomenon, formed by two low-level air masses moving in opposite directions, measured more than 100km/h.
Zikode said, thankfully, a church is looking after her mom while she rebuilds her RDP house.
For the Gumede family, the wind tore off the roofs of their three dwellings, the garage collapsed, windows were broken and their fence was toppled. The furniture was also damaged.
“When I saw the dark cloud and the damage that was coming with that wind approaching our house, I hid the children under the bed and also took cover. Next thing I heard was the sound of windows breaking, then the roof tearing off. The rain followed,” said Nokuthula Gumede.
She said rebuilding would be slow.
For the 28-member Xulu family, Tuesday's torrential rain has turned their lives upside down.
Nompumelelo Madika, who married into the family, said 10 adults and 18 children lived on the Inanda property in several dwellings. She said her husband's family moved to the area in 1979 and had been unsuccessfully applying for RDP houses for years.
“What happened is God's will, no-one could've stopped it, but we would be safer with a four-room house. We're not hopeful of any assistance from the government. We would love it ... we need to protect ourselves from disappointment. I've decided not to expect much. If it comes, great, if not, then there's nothing new there.”
She said the children have been sent to relatives while the adults sleep in the car or in the one room that still has a roof.
“We can't even afford enough food. How are we going to build a proper house or replace the furniture and all that we lost?”
KZN's latest storm follows a University of Pretoria (UP) study released in May which found the amount of rain in certain parts of South Africa has increased or become more extreme over the past 50 years.
The investigations were part of a study led by Charlotte McBride of the SAWS and a PhD candidate in UP’s geography, geoinformatics and meteorology department.
McBride said one of the consequences of climate change is the increase in frequency and/or intensity of weather events, including heatwaves, heavy rainfall, floods, droughts and tropical cyclones.
The study found that with more moisture available, the nature of rainfall events is likely to become more intense.
South Africa’s annual rainfall distribution is diverse, increasing from below 200mm in the west to above 1,200mm in the east.
“Some stations over the eastern parts showed increases of more than 100mm in the later period compared to the early period, when considering the one in 50 and one in 100 years return-period values. For example, the Letaba district rainfall station in Limpopo experienced an increase of more than 35%,” said McBride.
Prof Hope Hangwelani Magidimisha-Chipungu, a University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) lecturer in town and regional planning, said in the face of storms becoming more frequent, the city's drainage system and houses erected with no building codes and in precarious spots are unlikely to withstand such weather.
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