JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's major port of Durban, where operations were disrupted by severe flooding last week, is now functional and a backlog of thousands of containers will be cleared within days, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Tuesday.

       The floods caused extensive damage to roads leading to Durban port, one of the busiest shipping terminals in Africa. Durban is a key hub for exports and imports.

       Gordhan told an online briefing that fridges, massive logs and debris ended up in the harbour during the floods but that after 72 hours of dredging a lot of debris had been cleared.

       He said that trucks could now access the port terminals, which were operating at between 60% and 100% capacity.

       President Cyril Ramaphosa invoked the importance of the Durban port to the country's economy in an address to the nation on Monday, when he announced that his cabinet had declared a national state of disaster to respond to the crisis.

       "The significance of the Port of Durban and related infrastructure for the effective operation of the country's economy means that this disaster has implications far beyond the province of KwaZulu-Natal," Ramaphosa said.

       The floods, among the worst to have affected KwaZulu-Natal in its recorded history, have killed more than 440, left thousands homeless and damaged more than 10 billion rand ($674.88 million) of infrastructure.

       (Reporting by Helen Reid and Nelson Banya; Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Estelle Shirbon)