Climate resilience stories part 1: Quarry Road West, Durban

In the quiet moments before a storm, life carries on as usual. Families cook meals, children play, and communities thrive in the spaces they call home. But when disaster strikes—sudden and unforgiving—it leaves more than just physical destruction in its wake. It reshapes lives, fractures stability, and tests resilience in unimaginable ways.

The INACCT Resilience research project, led by ICLEI Africa and funded by the CLARE initiative, delves into the lived experiences of communities in two African cities that have recently faced catastrophic climate-induced flooding: eThekwini (Durban), South Africa, and Beira, Mozambique. In Durban, the 2022 floods devastated informal settlements like Quarry Road West and Pholani, stripping residents of their homes, livelihoods, and sense of security.

Through this photo essay, we bring forward the voices of those most affected at Quarry Road West informal settlement. Their reflections reveal not only the hardships they continue to endure—the loss of homes and identity documents, the destruction of essential services and infrastructure, the erasure of economic opportunities—but also the emotional toll: trauma, displacement, and a deep-seated struggle to rebuild.

Yet, within these challenges lies a powerful narrative of strength, adaptation, and community-driven recovery. Scroll through the images below to witness their stories—of resilience, survival, and the fight to reclaim dignity in the face of disaster.

Here is a big hole that was caused by the floods back in April 2022. Before it became like this it was flat land occupied with people’s structures. The floods did a lot of damage leaving people homeless and even claimed lives of others. The floods left our community with this big hole – it’s very dangerous because people pass by it everyday, including children. To top it all it is next to the freeway of which it’s our only way in and out.

When it’s raining the river fills up and goes to people’s structures so here the community created these stacks of sacks filled with sand / soil. Somehow it did help but if the flow is strong, it goes above and water enters people’s yards.

This opened toilet has not been working since 2022. It is a place that is unkempt and attracts diseases. People are using it for other purposes but it is not safe.

This photo (bottom right) shows where the toilet was before. It is now a road that gets into the community.

There were people’s houses in this hole in the ground, but they were all flooded and washed away.

This photo (bottom left) shows how our house was destroyed by the floods in the community. My family lost everything, even the house. In my house we lost our identity documents. I think a lot about this because even now we are renting because the land we built on was flooded. Our community toilet was also flooded and we were left with this one that is not working properly. We are still without good toilets.

As you can see in this photo (bottom center), we are running up and down not having a place to sleep and we were afraid of the river water. We were also trying to cover the pipe. This was a very scary moment.

When things were bad (bottom right) not knowing what to do next, Malema came with groceries, clothing and blankets. Other organizations came with cooked food and dished up to the community.

These photos shows our efforts putting in another toilet. We tried hard to build it but it fell down because the soil is moving. The space is also dangerous, as you can see the sanitation pipe is not underground which also causes danger to our health.

This was the only toilet that was left. We are using it with men. In our community, after the floods we were left with one toilet that is used by both men and women. In this situation it is easy to get diseases and is unsafe.

Our land was left like this (bottom left) after the flood, it was all washed away and left with this dangerous steep open hole.

The floods left us devastated here in Quarry Road as a community. Each and everyone of us lost something valuable and important. What I am showing you in this picture is how my house was destroyed during the floods. As you can see in this hole, there were people’s houses. All the houses were flooded. Our pathway along the bridge was also destroyed. We are now sharing a road with the cars, which is also dangerous to children because cars are speeding along the path near the main road which is very narrow.

The solution to all of this is that the Municipality must find new land for us or build RDP houses. It is evident that after the floods, we are not safe at all here in Quarry Road especially for children and old people. We have not had toilets since the floods. I think that if there are other floods coming again, we will have no land and no houses. My wish is that everyone that stays in Quarry Road has his or her own land to build a house. The RDP houses will be the best for us all.

In this picture (bottom right) I am showing something that we do to make sure that our houses are not drifted away by the floods. The floods will come but our houses will be stroner because we have used the tyers to make the land unmovable. As much as it is guaranteed but I hope we will be fine. The men of the community have helped a lot doing this. Some other houses have blocked their houses with sacks full of sand.

With climate change – there are more big snakes coming with the floods and they are coming in our houses. they come in and out the houses to find warmth and food. They are very dangerous and more in our community now.

This photo shows the bridge that was blocked by the waste during “izikhukhula” (floods).

In this photo there were houses that were flooded by the 2022 floods. There were 3 houses here.

We lost our houses including the land. It altered the landscape which led to very small spaces. Because of the change of landscape no one could retrieve the houses and we had to start afresh. Losing everything disturbs your mind not knowing where to start. Your health deteriorates, you are traumatised, angry and confused. This whole situation affects children as well.

It shattered our independency and took away our rights to land. We started to depend on the Municipality to make decisions for us and about us.

Floods stole our freedom and we are now living in someone else’s roofs abide by their rules of renting.

Floods took away our dignity and be treated like we do not belong into the community because we are not owning a house. Sometimes there will be meetings in the community and you are scared to speak out.

Those floods caused crop destruction taking our right to food, including businesses and economy of Quarry Road settlement was affected.

Infrastructure was destroyed including sewerage and water pipes. There is sewerage that was opened by floods and left a hole and it runs into the river. It is a threat to all including the children because they play everywhere. It smells, destroy nature, kills invertebrates from the river and children keep playing in the river.

We managed to minimise floods impacts by minimising on how to dispose waste by working with our stakeholders in partnership with the Municipality who have waste collectors who collect waste from the informal settlement as we all know that after the floods waste was all over the settlement.

We had to accept what happened and move on and be in a clean environment. It all started with a clean up and after that the Municipality gave us skips. The truck that fetches the skip when it is full kept complaining about the way of collecting the skip becomes difficult, after that the NGO partnered with the Municipality built mini containments which is 2.5 x 2.5 and big containments which is 7.5 x 7,5. Waste collectors with Quarry Road residents are keeping their environment clean and taking responsibility of the own waste but the challenge is still huge and we are not talking about it.

Environmental Makulungiswe

We have mini containments inside informal settlement where workers are collecting the waste to big containments separating bottles from solid waste and put solid waste in the big black waste bags for the Municipality to collect it. We have waste that does not go with trucks and is left behind. Big waste like mattresses, planks, sofas and plastic sheets rubble. Residents saw that we separated the waste and followed that way. We did not educate them how to separate waste. The Municipality gave us 4000 black plastic bags for the residents to take them whenever they need them.

What are the main activities

Cleaning the waste pathways
Cleaning waste from mini containments to big containments
Cleaning waste in the river
Cleaning waste that is in the grey water
Cleaning public waste
Cleaning bottles from the community to the big sacks that are provided
Cutting greenery

Main challenges

Human waste
4 parts of the settlement, 2 parts Mampondweni and Mamsuthu to throw waste in the skips but they throw waste in the river. The Municipality gave 4000 black plastic bags and 2000 bags were given bags.
Paras steal those plastic waste bags and tear them making double job for waste workers.
Funding to carry on.

Success

Seeing residents taking care of their waste
Hanging their waste in the passages keeping their place clean is interesting. We still continue to give the plastic bags,
Municipality is collecting waste
When we hear them saying that “ you are doing our work because after you have cleaned we breath the fresh air” and we tell them “ Do not give up on us because we are preaching to each other to do the right not to throw waste in the river, but some of us still do dispose waste in the river. Kancane, kancane sizofunda!!!!

The floods destroyed my whole life and my family that live with me in Quarry Road settlement. The floods destroyed our house and we were left with one wall and we were forced to make our house smaller than it was before the floods. We have since learned to live in a very small house even though we are a big family. Our house is sitting on a cliff which causes danger to my children. When it rains the small ponds are created around the house. We are not able to move elsewhere because the rent is too high.

This photo shows that we started building our house with timber to make a straight level house. We filled the sacks with soil to make it strong and levelled. It is not helping in the long run because we are using a river sand that is easy to be flooded. I believe that if the Municipality can remove us from that area, we might get better houses where we can be safe.

Our Indian neighbours and other organisations helped us a lot by giving us food and shelter during those difficult days. We had a woman in our community who took care of our children while building our new shacks.

The fire fighters helped us a lot during floods, as you can see in this picture. They helped us with cleaning drinking water to all residents of Quarry Road. They also came when our houses were engulfed by fires.

As Quarry Road residents we have come up with a plan of putting tyres next to our houses near the river to protect our houses from being flooded. If you loose a house, you do not just lose a house but you also lose your confidence as well. Once the house is flooded, you will never build a house in that spot.

As you can see in this picture (bottom left), this is my house that was flooded and left me with nothing. I had a 6 month old baby that time.

The sewage drains that were destroyed by floods.

The gifts that we receive from different organizations during and after floods, which helped us a lot.

24 February 2020

Climate resilience stories part 1: Quarry Road West, Durban