Heavy rains and flooding have killed at least 341 people in South Africa’s eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, including the city of Durban, and more rainstorms are forecast in the coming days. The death toll is expected to rise as scores of people, including whole families, are missing, officials said Thursday. The persistent rains have wreaked havoc in the province, destroying homes, collapsing buildings and washing away major roads. Also read:32 die in Zimbabwean bus accident The damage to Durban and the surrounding eThekwini metropolitan area is estimated at $52 million, eThekwini Mayor Mxolosi Kaunda said Thursday. At least 120 schools have been flooded, causing damage estimated at more than $26 million and bringing officials to temporarily close all schools in the province. At least 18 students and one teacher from various schools have died in the floods, Education Minister Angie Motshekga said. “This is a catastrophe and the damage is unprecedented. What is even more worrying is that more rain is expected in the same areas that are already affected,” Motshekga said in a statement issued Thursday. Police used stun grenades to disperse residents in the Reservoir Hills areas of Durban who were protesting what they said was the lack of official assistance, according to South African media reports. The South African National Defense Force has deployed troops to assist with rescue and mop-up operations. Also read:South Africa's Durban area hit by heavy floods, 45 dead The floods have knocked out water and electricity to large parts of Durban and the surrounding eThekwini metropolitan area and it will take at least a week to restore those services, according to officials. President Cyril Ramaphosa visited is convening an emergency Cabinet meeting to declare the floods a national disaster so that funds can be released to help repair the damage. He visited several areas hit by the floods and mudslides on Wednesday. Fourteen crocodiles that were swept away from a farm in the Tongaat area north of Durban have been recaptured, according to wildlife officials.

Prolonged rains and flooding in the Durban area of South Africa have claimed the lives of at least 45 people, damaging the port, major highways and surrounding areas in KwaZulu-Natal province, according to local officials. South Africa's military has been deployed to Durban and the surrounding eThekwini metropolitan area on Tuesday to assist with rescue operations as residents flee flooded areas. Some people have been swept away by surging waters, say officials. Durban port, the largest and busiest shipping terminal in sub-Saharan Africa, has been inundated with floodwaters that carried away shipping containers and left them in a jumbled pile. Authorities are providing shelter for several hundred people whose homes and possessions were washed away by the floods and technicians are working to restore electricity to areas where power had been knocked out. READ: Dams needed to boost Australia's flood resilience: PM Emergency services have for several days been responding to urgent calls for help from people stuck in their houses but the number is beginning to decrease, emergency services spokesman Robert McKenzie told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “There are still cases of collapsed buildings where operations are still continuing,” he said. “Most of our power stations have been flooded and our teams are working hard to restore power to the affected areas," Moxilisi Kaunda, mayor of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality, told a press briefing Tuesday. “Our teams are on the ground to try and return the situation to normalcy," he said. "We continue to assess the damages, we cannot be sure of the extent of the damages at the moment.”