WHEN WILD WAVES WASH ASHORE

Independent’s KZN picture editor Shelley Kjonstad put together this week’s old and new picture series. It started with a Facebook post showing heavy waves washing over Durban’s beach promenade on Sunday (third picture).

Tragedy struck later that day when a 7-year-old girl drowned after being knocked off the pier by the waves. Lifeguards launched a boat and brought the child to shore, but paramedics were unable to resuscitate her. Kjonstad searched our archives for similar pictures of weather lashing the beachfront. The first, on the left, appeared in The Mercury on January 6, 1939. The caption only read ‘Very little damage was done the beaches this afternoon although there were spectacular waves about 50 yards from the road’.

The second picture appeared in the Daily News on March 18, 1980. Here the caption read the ‘Lower Marine Parade was under water again yesterday as huge waves smashed against the retaining wall flooding the paddling pool area and the Amusement Park’. It also noted the sea appeared to be making its own ‘desperate bid’ to reclaim land from developers.

The Independent on Saturday appeals to readers who have old pictures of Durban and other parts of the province to send them to us for consideration. If any readers are featured in the old picture, we will do our best to recreate the scene with them in it. Readers who send pictures digitally – images should be about 1MB – can address them, with the relevant information, to satmail@inl.co.za

If in hard copy format, they can be posted to The Editor, Old Pictures, The Independent on Saturday, PO Box 47549, Greyville, 4023.