Pretoria, Apr 22 (IANS): South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal floods death toll has been revised down from 448 to 435, said Police Minister Bheki Cele while briefing the media about the flood on Thursday.

"There was a figure of 448 fatalities, which has now been revised down to 435. This is as a result of autopsies performed on four bodies and it was determined that the deaths were murder-related as they were found with bullet wounds... Nine more people were determined to have died from natural causes, which were not related to the disaster. The final fatality figure stands at 435 as of this morning," Cele was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.

He said they have deployed over 3,000 police officers and 900 KwaZulu-Natal province metro police to help with emergency relief, maintain law and order and prevent opportunistic crimes while the army is deploying 10,000 that include doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers and pharmacists.