A father who four children in the devastating floods in KwaZulu-Natal has told of how when the area was inundated on Monday night, he could hear sounds like a thunderstorm hitting his house roof.

A distraught Meli Sokela told Reuters that immediately afterwards, the walls of his home crumbled.

“My neighbours, tried to assist me, it took two hours. After two hours, I survived but unfortunately my child[ren] did not survive,” he said.

The province went from floods to fire on Wednesday as the disastrous impact of one of the worst downpours in the province's history started emerging.

More than 250 people were reported dead on Wednesday and the toll was expected to rise to a new total by this morning.

Communities felt forsaken as residents desperately tried to cope with the death and devastation that caused roads and bridges to collapse, swept away homes and caused fatal mudslides.

President Cyril Ramaphosa's visit to flood-ravaged parts of eThekwini on Wednesday was overshadowed by hundreds of angry Bhambayi residents closing off the M25 highway in Inanda, north of Durban, with burning tyres and debris.

Community leader Mdu Hadebe, 37, claimed the community was aggrieved that no one had responded to their calls for help as three families were washed away during the recent floods.

“Three families were washed away. I personally called SAPS who said they were going to send the diving unit but no one has come until now. Second, we have not had electricity for five days. The president passed here without coming to hear the concerns of our community [sic].”

Hadebe said many houses were damaged in the area.

“We don't even have space to sleep. We have got kids who haven't eaten from Sunday because there is no electricity.”

A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in February warned that humanity was far from ready even for the climate change that is already baked into the system by decades of fossil fuel-burning and deforestation.

It urged the world to ramp up investments in adaptation.

“None of this is surprising but it's absolutely devastating. Can you imagine the cost to people's lives? The roads, the ports...It's massive,” Melissa Fourie, a commissioner on Ramaphosa's Presidential Climate Commission and head of the Centre for Environmental Rights, told Reuters.

“In SA, we're still talking about the transition from fossil fuels as if it were optional. We have to stop (burning them). And have to start preparing for the climate change that we already have.”