Specialist dive tour operator Scuba Dive Adventures runย severalย diving trips to South Africa annually, but this year the divers arrived to find total and utter destruction toย Kwazulu-Natal, which had borne the brunt of a natural flood disaster. More than 41,000 locals had lost their homes, plus there was an increasing death toll of 400 plus. Motorways had been washedย away, with shipping containers and vehicles strewn across the highways.
Scuba Dive Adventuresโ Damian Groves said: โFor us as divers, we could not only see the devastation to the land, but the trail of destruction as far as the eye could see, along the beautiful Umhlanga beach. Theย visibility was so bad due to the floods we were unable to dive at all for the firstย few days.
โNot content with sitting around, our groupย were desperate to help theย local community. We decided we would do a beach clean the likes youย haveย never seen before โ armedย withย several pick-up trucks andย tractors, we headedย down and began theย mammoth task of clearing the debris.
โOur goal was toย get the plastics off the beach, stop the microplastics going into the sea and protect our oceans.
โWith our protective gloves on, we began the enormous task of rummaging through the jumbled piles of plastic bottles, brooms, mops, nappies, tyres and other debris, carrying the full bags to the โbackieโ, and onto the skip.
โWe finally conceded when we could put no more into the skip.ย There is still a long way to go, andย this is just one beach, and with many other beaches in dire need of help. Weโve got such devastation with plastics in our oceans, that if we donโt look after them, we wonโt have the beautiful diving and beaches to appreciate in future years.
โThe flood disaster will impact Kwazulu-Natalโs economy, which performs in sectors such as tourism, manufacturing and agriculture for many years to come.โ
He added: โA massive thank you to all of our Scuba Dive Adventure guests, who made this happen. We have also set up a Just Giving page for anyone who would like to donate to the people of KZN, where thousands of people haveย lost their homes and possessions, and many are still without running water.โ
