Search for Sunningdale woman shifts to Umgeni River
Emergency services and volunteers spent hours combing through the Umgeni River and surrounding areas.
AFTER deep excavations at Glen Anil failed to yield any results in the search for Brenda Scriven, emergency services, along with community volunteers, have rallied a massive search downstream.
Despite hundreds of volunteers pitching up to sludge through the debris at the Umgeni River, Scriven has yet to be found. Desperate family members turned to Facebook to create the ‘Searching for Brenda’ page yesterday evening, appealing to members of the community to join today’s search, as two days of searching in a stream along Old North Coast Road proved fruitless.
Addressing the volunteers at the site, W/O Dave Steyn, head of the SAPS Search and Rescue Unit, said based on the confluence of the river there was only a two per cent chance that Scriven had washed out to sea
He urged volunteers to focus on the flood plains and areas full of debris, as this would be the most likely place where she could be found.
While groups of volunteers combed the mangroves, along the beach up to Suncoast Casino and both sides of the river (between the M12 and M4 bridges) four canines searched upstream. Members of a local lifesaving club, said Marshall Security’s Kyle van Reenen, provided paddle and jet skis to assist the search.
The 62-year-old Sunningdale resident disappeared nearly 72 hours ago. It is believed she was swept away by the torrential rains in Glen Anil on Monday night.
