JOHANNESBURG, (Reuters) – More than 400 people were killed in floods in KwaZulu-Natal. The damage was estimated at 10 billion rand ($684.58 Million). This statement came from a top provincial official. Rescuers searched for missing persons and rain continued to fall.

Many people have been left homeless by the floods, which also disrupted Durban’s operations, Africa’s most important port.

Ravi Pillay is a KZN official who handles economic development tourism and environment affairs. She said there had been just over 400 people killed, but that 40-50 were still missing.

He spoke out about the damages and said that it “exceeded 10 billion at this point”.

SABC public broadcaster put Saturday’s death count at 398 with 27 still missing.

The office of President Cyril Ramaphosa stated late Saturday that he delayed his working trip to Saudi Arabia in order to concentrate on the catastrophe. Ramaphosa is scheduled to meet with cabinet ministers in order to evaluate the emergency response.

Pillay stated that some KZN hotels reported occupancy levels as high as 70%, but there were significant cancellations during the busy Easter weekend. He estimated this at around 30%.

It is extremely unfortunate that… we are returning to a very traumatic 2 and 1/2 years. We actually had been building very nicely in January, February and March terms of our tourist numbers,” he stated. “We had been looking forward to the proverbial bumper Easter. It wasn’t.”

($1 = 14.6076 rand)