Sharjah24 - AFP: South Africa deployed 10,000 troops on Monday to help restore power and water and search for 63 people who remain missing after deadly storms battered its east coast.

A week after unprecedented rain began to pound the city of Durban and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province, the death toll stood at 443, and rescue workers said hopes of finding more survivors were fading.

Clyde Naicker said his brother Ronald had been missing for a week, since he disappeared while trying to get to his job as a hospital radiographer.

"Apparently from what we heard, his vehicle got flooded and then he tried to go to safety," Naicker said. The family has been searching every day, but police only joined their effort on Monday.

In addition to his wife, 49-year-old Ronald has two children, aged just two and three.

"The tragedy currently unfolding in our province is one of the worst natural disasters in the recorded history of our country," KZN's provincial government said.

Funerals were being held across the city of Durban, which bore the brunt of the storms.

But with damaged roads and waterlogged cemeteries, burials were difficult.

"There are so many deceased, and the mortuaries can't keep up because they have been so inundated. So it is taking a little longer to get the deceased out for burial," said Pieter van der Westhuizen, general manager for funeral services at the Avbob insurance company.

KZN Funeral Directors Association representative Nasan Chetty said the continuous rain had made it "very difficult to do burials".