A world of extremes has become the new normal

While one part of South Africa or Africa experiences crippling drought, other parts are hit by devastating floods. Nothing is typical any more.

- Julia Evans

On 11 April 2022, Sibongile Mkhize left her shift at a textile factory early, feeling unwell. She had no idea it would be her last normal day for a long time.

"When I was coming home from work, it was a rainy day," she said. "But it didn't seem like anything bad was going to happen. It was just a normal day."

After a visit to the clinic, she arrived at her home in Umlazi's V Section informal settlement, in the south of Durban. As she fell asleep, she could hear the rain rattling on the roof. Hours later, she woke up to frantic banging on her door from her neighbour. He pulled her off the bed, and as she stood up, she realised the water had risen to the height of the mattress up to her hips. She had been so deeply asleep that she hadn't even noticed the bed was soaked.

As Mkhize scrambled to pack a suitcase and gather important documents, her neighbour kept urging her outside. Realising the water would be too high for her young, short roommate, a family friend, Mkhize hoisted her on to her back as her neighbour pulled her out. Within 10 minutes, her house was covered in water.

Cars were swept away. On her street, many homes vanished entirely. "My house was washed away, my furniture, everything. You can't even see where my house was. Only the electricity pole and the mud were left."

What Mkhize didn't know at the time and what a team of international scientists from the World Weather Attribution Group later confirmed - was that the rainfall that destroyed her home formed part of a two-day extreme rainfall event that caused catastrophic flooding and landslides across KwaZulu-Natal and parts of the Eastern Cape. According to the scientists, this extreme rainfall over 11 and 12 April - the most intense two-day total recorded in the region - was made about twice as likely by human-caused climate change.