Search and rescue teams in Mthatha anticipate difficult conditions as cold front moves in

MTHATHA - Search and rescue crews are anticipating working under difficult conditions on Thursday due to a cold front that has landed in the province.
 
An operation is ongoing for missing people more than two weeks after floods ravaged many areas.
 
At least 100 people have died in the province so far.
 
Divers, paramedics and disaster teams said they'd been tested, not just by the terrain, but by what they've had to pull from the water.
 
Some crew members admit this has been the most traumatic deployment of their careers, with children among the dead, families watching from hilltops and survivors haunted by the ones who didn't make it.
 
Siseko Mcakuvana, a volunteer for the Gift of the Givers rescue team, described the harsh conditions underwater.

"Obstacles that we find, some are very dangerous, that is why, as the rescue practitioners, we have to wear gloves as we are working there, because as we are moving, there is a lot of things that you have to move away and search. There is nobody that you may leave behind."
 
As conditions deteriorate, officials said crews would press on, although the search is no longer one of rescue but of closure.

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