Durban - It’s mostly good news for Durban, with hotels bursting at the seams, drivers adhering to the rules of the road and 70000 sun seekers enjoying the city’s main beaches on Friday.
But in other parts of the province, three children drowned, with one body yet to be found, and last night a man drowned off Dakota Beach, near Isipingo.
KZN SAPS spokeswoman Colonel Thembeka Mbhele said on Friday night police teams had been busy at the scenes where young children had drowned.
In Umkomaas a six-year-old child went missing in the water while he was playing with friends. His body was found on Friday, Mbhele said. A 10-year-old boy drowned in a river in Harding. In the third incident, a child went missing in the Empangeni area. Police suspect the child drowned.
While long queues at the toll plazas may have had tempers simmering in Friday’s heat, traffic authorities confirmed no major crashes had been reported on the province’s freeways.
The Road Traffic Inspectorate spokeswoman for KwaZulu-Natal, Zinhle Mngomezulu, said 2500 vehicles an hour were passing through the Mooi River and Mariannhill plazas at about midday.
“There was a heavy traffic flow with congestion at the toll plazas. There were very long queues at Tugela Plaza yesterday as traffic backed up, as well as lesser traffic queues at Mariannhill and Mooi River. But there were no reported serious accidents.”
However, five people were injured in Durban at the corner of Sandile Thusi (Argyle) and Sylvester Ntuli (Brickhill) roads after three vehicles were involved in a serious collision early yesterday. One man, who had been a passenger, sustained critical injuries. Four others were injured and taken to various Durban hospitals, Rescue Care spokesman Garrith Jamieson said.
A man in his twenties was critically injured when he was hit by a train near Albert Falls, ER24 spokesman Russel Meiring said.
eThekwini’s deputy head of metro police, Assistant Commissioner Steve Middleton, said an estimated 70000 people flocked to Durban’s main beaches on Friday, with beachfront roads being closed at midday.
Federated Hospitality Association of SA operations director Charles Preece said beachfront hotels were 90 percent full. “The whole month has been pretty good because we started off with a conference and all Durban members are already reporting a good season.
“The beachfront is 85 to 90 percent full for the month and that is normally indicative of what is happening on the North and South coasts and the Midlands. Durban is always popular at this time of year from the domestic point of view, with a lot of visitors coming from Gauteng. Accessibility is the key from Gauteng,” he said.
By midweek the province’s supply of blood stood at just over three days, according to SA National Blood Service’s KwaZulu-Natal spokesman, Sifiso Khoza.
“To meet the daily demand for blood, SANBS must collect an average of 3000 units of blood a day which should keep us going for at least five days,” he said.
“We want to encourage people to find 30 minutes this holiday period to donate blood, because while you are relaxing and enjoying the break, your blood will be out there saving up to three lives,” said Khoza.