Thousands of homes have been damaged by floods that have hit the Johannesburg area as well as northern and eastern provinces. — Photo by AP

JOHANNESBURG: Flooding in South Africa has killed more than 100 people, saturated farms in the major food producer for the continent and led the government to declare 33 municipalities disaster areas.

The government at the weekend said the death toll in flooding over the past month had more than doubled from its previous estimate of 41, with most of the fatalities coming from the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province.

Thousands of homes have been damaged by floods that have hit the Johannesburg area as well as northern and eastern provinces.

Neighbouring Mozambique has also been hard hit, with more than 13,000 people seeing their homes lost or damaged due to high waters.

South African logistics group Transnet said this month that heavy rains had disrupted its freight rail operations, affecting coal and maize exports.