In 1905, the Colony of Natal was witness to an extraordinary storm during the usually calm winter months of May and June. Through a culmination of events, a calamity would befall and take the lives of the mostly Indian market farmers along the Umbilo/uMbilo River valley from Pinetown to the harbour of the burgeoning town of Durban. INTRODUCTION: All key individuals featured are historical figures, apart from Jodha Singh’s sister Kruti and her son Gulshan who were added for the market farmer perspective (no records or statements were taken, or are no longer available, of those farmers who survived). While all dialogue and domestic life, though historically accurate, is fiction, all key moments and data are based on eyewitness accounts and readings by those featured, and who survived the disaster. While I have endeavoured to focus on the disaster specifically caused by the Pinetown/Umbilo Waterworks collapse, for storytelling purposes, many in the Durban areas – along the Umgeni and Umhl
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How it ended How it started – 23 June 2021 TL;DR: On 23 June we packed up house – 95% of our household and moved in with friends. While staying with my brother and his wife in Limpopo on 12 July, our world seemed to go up in smoke. From one emotional situation to another, we thought we'd hit rock bottom until the Universe opened another layer of the bottomless pit. But the pit was a tunnel...with light at the end of it. On 23 June we packed up house – 95% of our household – and moved in with friends Jane and John Smith. It was hard watching all our stuff get packed away, mostly inaccessible, into one regular garage-sized space. Equally hard was figuring out what we "needed" on a daily basis with us and that could fit in a suitcase. Having friends and family supporting us during this time made a huge difference, and those that understood what we were going through already. My brother Michael and my sister-in-law Cecilia had said we must come up to them in Limpopo when we