[imagesource: Twitter / @apexworldnews]

KwaZulu-Natal is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis.

Each update brings with it an increase in the confirmed death toll, but we won’t know the full extent of the loss of life until well after the dust has settled.

Aerial footage shows homes and communities being wrecked, and the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) said that the flooding has resulted in the “biggest mass rescue operation we have faced in recent history”.

Thank the heavens for Gift of the Givers because government assistance is in very short supply.

Figures released last night by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs have the death toll at 306.

If there is one minor relief for residents, it’s that the captive crocodiles that escaped from the Crocodile Creek farm near Tongaat have now been recaptured.

The Daily Maverick reports that the animals escaped after “stormwater from the N2 highway ripped open fencing and gabion walls”. Whether every last one has been recaptured remains unclear.

Footage shared yesterday showed residents filming a croc at the mouth of the Tongaat River:

This guy took a slightly different approach:

SOUTH AFRICA: 4 of 5 crocodile ponds were washed away from the crocodile farm people have been warned to be on the lookout for the crocs in the Tongaat river towards the beach. KZN Wildlife has been informed. pic.twitter.com/xJA5mcI9YB

— Apex World News (@apexworldnews) April 13, 2022

Yesterday, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife spokesperson Musa Mntambo said that 12 crocodiles had been washed away from the Crocodile Creek farm.

The numbers given by 80-year-old Peter Watson, who owns the farm, differ slightly. He says that 13 crocs have been recaptured over the duration of Tuesday and Wednesday.

It would have been more had he not spent most of Tuesday standing guard at the fence “smacking (crocs) on the nose” to prevent them  from escaping:

Watson said he was “not sure” just how many crocs escaped, but denied that he owns the large, four to five-metre croc that was sighted and filmed this week beneath a damaged bridge over the M4 a few kilometres from the upmarket Zimbali resort.

Watson said he owned only one similar-sized croc, a five-metre, 640kg male named Hannibal (sourced from Botswana).

“I would love another croc that size and am willing to pay R20,000 to anyone who catches it and delivers it to me,” said Watson, who said he was often blamed for the presence of any crocodile spotted in the wild “anywhere between Tanzania and Cape Town”.

He says the large crocodile starring in the videos above has actually been there for a full year and is not one of his.

According to the Crocodile Creek website, the farm has “roughly 6 000 Nile Crocodiles, Slender-Snouted Crocodiles, West African Dwarf Crocodiles, American Alligators, Deadly Mambas and a wide array of Snakes, Tortoises, Rabbits, Wild Monkeys, Banded Mongeese and more”.

Good thing it was just some of the crocs that escaped, then.

There was also a sighting of a large Southern African Python on a beach near Westbrook. Thankfully, the more than three-metre snake was unharmed and will be released by snake catcher Nick Evans in due course:

The horrific floods have hugely effected the people of KZN, but wildlife too.
This python washed up on a beach last night near Westbrook
Full story:https://t.co/tnflMeYaZQ#KZNFloods #KZNWeather #Snakes #Reptiles #Conservation #Wildlife #Durban #SouthAfrica #Herpetology #KZN pic.twitter.com/qyDcK9eqRI

— Nick Evans (@NickEvansKZN) April 13, 2022

You can follow live updates on the KZN floods here and here.

[source:dailymaverick]