By Bronwyn Gerretsen, Fiona Gounden and Sapa
It took less than seven minutes for "tornado-like winds" and heavy rains to devastate the area of Molweni, near Hillcrest, KwaZulu-Natal, on Friday, reducing hundreds of RDP houses to rubble and leaving eight people dead, including three children.
The youngest was a two-year-old girl who was presumed safe in her home before it collapsed on top of her.
Freak weather patterns on Friday saw heavy hail in parts of Hillcrest and Pinetown and torrential downpours in Durban, but the few minutes of gale-force winds destroyed the lives of thousands of families in Molweni.
Dr Meshack Radebe, social welfare and development MEC, was on the scene within minutes and said the storm was over in just a few minutes but left behind destruction like he had never seen before.
"In less than seven minutes these people have lost everything they have worked for for years... and these are not squatter camps, these are RDP houses. We have already discovered eight bodies and we're still digging," he said.
Of about 2 000 houses in the area, Radebe said only about half of them were still standing. "It happened like lightning," he said.
Netcare 911 spokesperson Chris Botha said he had never seen such devastation in his 35 years of emergency services.
Brick houses had become piles of rubble, electric light poles and thick cables had snapped and roofs of houses were wrapped around objects like they were "bits of Clingwrap".
People's furniture and clothes lay scattered everywhere.
"This is the kind of stuff you see on TV where tornados have hit places overseas."
Hundreds of people were injured, many with broken limbs, and ambulances were kept busy taking the injured to nearby hospitals.
The sight of emergency workers lifting "little bodies" from underneath their collapsed houses was a sight DA councillor Tex Collins said he would never be able to forget.
"It was one of the most tragic scenes I have ever been to," he said.
Nokwenza Nzunga, whose 10-year-old daughter Samkelisiwe and 9-year-old nephew Sanele Hlongwane, were killed, said, "It all happened so quickly. I saw the weather change, the rain came and there were heavy winds... then the houses started collapsing, there was a commotion as the roofs flew off."