Imtiaz Sooliman – Linda Mnisi speaks to from Gift of the Givers, on KwaZuluNatal floods

Get an update on the floods. We're joined now by reporter Linda, see

who's live for us from Durban north. Linda, of course, As

evening sets in, you know, I think the country is really trying to

begin to digest that just the scale of this disaster, over 200

people being lost, at least for now, and that number could very

well continue to increase,

absolutely Cathy. And from where we are standing right now, search

and rescue operations are underway. Cathy. And when you

think everything you know has ended. Now people are rebuilding

their lives. There comes another tragedy. In fact, this one

happened on Monday when a wall fell into the room of a domestic

helper here in Durban north. What you're seeing right now on your

screen are members of the canine unit from the saps. They're

digging behind a house here in Durban, north that wall there

collapsed into a room, and she was buried, you know, under that

rubble. So it's been, what, almost two days now that you know, the

search and rescue operations have been going on. Gift of the givers

also stepping in to try and get some assistance for the people who

are working here on the ground. I'm joined now by the director of

gift of the givers, dr, nitya Sullivan. Sullivan, thank you so

much for your time. I want you to talk to us about what really

happened here. Well, it was strange enough on Monday night

when I was busy with a program I saw what's the name socially, I

post about this house, not knowing it's a friend's house. And then I

got a message from my wife to say, Do you know friends house? The

Wall fell from the top. I went into the house, this house above

this house, went into the dining room, and then the next wall fell

down. The neighbors, the friends, and collapsed onto the domestics

room, and they realized the domestic was caught up under the

rubble. So on Monday night, they call the search and rescue teams.

It rains, was quite heavy at a time, and from then, they've been

very good. They've been trying to retrieve the body. But, I mean,

it's raining, you can see the money just keep getting worse. And

to get the equipment, the right equipment, which is a bucket,

remember, you have to go to small areas. You have to come to a

small, narrow cap to go to the top. The TLB is too big and and

they have don't have the right equipment, because in such demand

Asmaa everywhere the whole province. So we, when I came on

site, I didn't know they needed that. So when I came to visit

them, just out of sympathy, and when I realized what they did, we

made a call, and within an hour, somebody responded, and the person

was here and is coming with a vodka later. But in the meantime,

it appears that the such a restrictive have made great

progress. Apparently, the smell of the body is quite clear now from

the room, from in the house, and they found a leather wallet that

belongs to the domestic and other items that belong to the domestic.

Because at the beginning they were not sure if they were taking the

right place, but all this rubber falling, you can't be sure if the

body is displaced and it's mountains of rubble. So you know,

with all the hard effort, it looks like we're quite close to finding

the prison.

And of course, now how long will it take? I mean, I know you won't

be able to tell us exactly how long it will take. But I mean,

looking at the amount of work that still needs to be done, has the

family been notified? How long do you think we'll still be here for?

I'm hoping it's not going to be too many hours. The only limiting

factor is how long the social risk of people can work. It's

exhausting work. It's hard work, manual labor. Through all that

trouble, they just cut a pool pump that fell from the top. Now they

took it out, and I think they motivated. I get the sense that

they feel they're quite close, and that's putting them on. And if

they battle, and, you know, and it's still, Bobcat comes, we will

have the body out tonight. All right, thank you so much. MTS

Asmaa, they're giving us, you know, a sense Kathy, of what

happened here. So it seems the search and rescue teams have made

great progress in terms of trying to locate where, exactly,

you know, the body is. Earlier on, when I arrived here, I managed to

spot, like a sniffer dog, you know, who, which was also part of

this team. MTR is telling us how difficult it is to try and get to

that body, given, of course, the mud, if you look at the wall there

and how it has fallen over to this particular room, if you were just

an ordinary person who did not know what exactly happened here,

you wouldn't even begin to suspect that a body could be trapped

underground. So the work then continues Cathy, and it gives you

a kind of a picture of perhaps the damage that has been caused by

this rain. This incident happened on Monday, but we're still here

trying to retrieve the body and make sure that, of course,

everything goes according to plan. So there you have it. Kathy, it.

Seems they still have a long way to go, but are making progress.

All right. Linda nisi, let's leave it there for now. Plenty more

coverage from him later on in the program.