South Africa rescue teams recovered more bodies Thursday, days after heavy rains and strong winds battered the Eastern Cape province, as the death toll rose to at least 67.

The bitterly cold winter storm struck the largely rural and underdeveloped province on Monday, causing a river to burst its banks and submerge homes, with several make-shift dwellings toppled.

The worst-hit area was around the city of Mthatha, about 800 kilometres (500 miles) south of Johannesburg, where residents picked through the mud three days later to salvage what they could from their destroyed homes.

AFP journalists saw a rescue team pull four bodies, some of them children, from a one-roomed house in the late afternoon as locals watched.

“As the water subsides, more bodies are being discovered,” said Caroline Gallant, Eastern Cape manager at the South African Red Cross Society, which has sent assistance to the disaster zone.

More than 3,000 houses have been affected, she told AFP, adding it was “the worst ever disaster” recorded in the area.

“The figure now has gone to 67 in terms of deceased,” Velenkosini Hlabisa, minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs, told reporters.

It includes six school students who were among 10 in a school van that was swept away in the flooding, he said. Four of the children are still missing, officials said.

“We learnt of an additional two learners today… who have been confirmed as having died on the walk to school,” Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube said.

“We are reeling,” she told public broadcaster SABC News.

The storm damaged power and water supplies and hundreds of people were forced to relocate.

President Cyril Ramaphosa called the floods “unprecedented” and said he would visit the disaster-hit region Friday.