Damaged sheets of corrugated iron were stacked in bundles as residents of Kennedy Road informal settlement in Durban attempted to recover after a fire that destroyed more than 1,000 homes.

Thandeka Zondo was sleeping on Sunday morning when she heard people screaming that there was a fire.

"We tried to salvage what we could, but we lost the kids' uniforms and my biggest worry is my ID," she said, standing in her shack, which was missing some of its corrugated iron sheeting, exposing the interior to the elements.

One person died and thousands were displaced after a fire tore through the Kennedy Road informal settlement in Durban on Sunday.

According to the eThekwini Municipality, the person who died was a 25-year-old man from Eastern Cape. The municipality said 1,101 homes were destroyed, leaving more than 1,700 adults and almost 650 children displaced.

Zondo slept in her damaged shack on Sunday night and will continue to stay there to guard the goods she managed to salvage and to safeguard her piece of land.

Her children, aged five, nine and 15, are in the Eastern Cape for the school holidays and will have to miss classes until she can finish rebuilding the structure and obtain new uniforms.

"It is so cold; this is no way to live. I am just glad my children are not here, otherwise I would be even more...