At least five people have been killed in floods and mudslides across the South African port city of Durban following heavy rain, authorities said on Tuesday.

Days of pounding rain have flooded several areas and shut dozens of roads across the southeastern city, while landslips have caused train services across KwaZulu-Natal province to be suspended.

"Five deaths have been reported so far (but) we are still busy gathering information from the emergency services," Lungi Mtshali, spokesman for the Department of Cooperative Governance, a national ministry, told AFP.

Local media are reporting between 11 and 20 people dead, although the figures have not yet been confirmed, and one first responder said he expected the official toll to rise.

Video footage shared by private emergency and rescue workers and paramedics showed flooded city highways, submerged cars and collapsed houses.

The disaster management department in KwaZulu-Natal, of which Durban is the largest city, urged people to stay at home and ordered those residing in low-lying areas to move to higher ground.

Rescue operations are underway to evacuate people in areas that have "experienced mudslides, flooding and structural collapses of buildings and roads," the department said.

Durban mayor Mxolisi Kaunda told reporters that power stations had been flooded and water supplies disrupted -- and that even graveyards had not been spared the devastation.

One picture posted on Twitter by an anti-theft vehicle-tracking agency showed what looked like a human skull that had been washed to the surface of a cemetery.

Footage on public broadcaster showed several shipping containers strewn on a freeway in the city, one of southern Africa's regional gateways to the sea.

A local humanitarian agency, Gift of the Givers, said in a statement: "The need of the hour is huge."

It said transport infrastructure had suffered massive damage and some people were trapped beneath collapsed walls.

The country's rail service PRASA said landslips and rubble on the tracks had forced it to suspend all train services in the province.

"It's an absolute nightmare. Plenty of mudslides, people passing (dying), buildings collapsed," Garrith Jamieson, director of Durban-based ALS Paramedics Medical Services, told AFP as he predicted "more fatalities."

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