Staff Reporter.
eThekwini Municipality Mayor, Mxolisi Kaunda, has vowed that the municipality will do everything in its power to assist the families in searching for missing municipal employees.
The two municipal employees went missing and presumed drowned following the heavy rains and flood over the weekend.
It is feared that the two workers, who were employed in the water unit and attached to the Phoenix Treatment Works, might have been victims of the floods as the municipal car they were travelling in was recovered in a river.
eThekwini was battered by heavy rains this past weekend which caused more devastation and damaged more houses. This is after devastating floods in April that left more than 350 people in eThekwini dead, thousands homeless and thousands of homes damaged or destroyed.
During a special exco meeting on Sunday, the city revealed that three bodies had been discovered in rivers but one of the bodies had a gunshot and the other person had died of natural causes.
According to Kaunda, the city learnt of the incident on Monday, and the search and rescue operation commenced.
“The vehicle they were travelling in was spotted. Search and rescue teams then went into the water to investigate. Unfortunately, there were no occupants inside.
“The team then resolved to search around the vehicle. However, due to strong currents that were posing a serious threat to the lives of the divers, the search operation had to be aborted,” Kaunda said.
The Mayor has assured the families of the employees that the city’s search and rescue teams have been looking for them and the team will not stop until they are found.
“[On Tuesday], the teams embarked on an aerial search with no success. The search is continuing, and the city will keep the families abreast of developments,” Kaunda said.
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) in KZN said the union is “worried'” by the disappearance of two municipal employees from the city’s Water and Sanitation Department.
Provincial secretary Nokubonga Dinga said the union now fears the worst and their families are distraught after three days of searching.
“Following the failure to locate the two workers, community members and fellow municipal employees embarked on a search-and-rescue mission which only recovered the municipal vehicle which the employees were driving in, “she said.