About 60 families have been displaced in the Collins Chabane Municipality in Limpopo. Their mud and grass-thatched houses collapsed due to heavy rains. Several parts of the province experienced heavy rains brought by tropical storm Eloise since Saturday.
Some residents at Makhasa village, in the Collins Chabane Municipality, are feeling the effects of heavy rains brought by tropical storm Eloise. Some have used old corrugated iron sheets, plastic and logs to try to stop the mud huts from crumbling.
Hlamalani Mkhabele and her two-month-old baby girl narrowly escaped danger when their hut started leaking and crumbling.
Mkhabele says she has not returned to the hut since the weekend as it’s on the brink of collapse.
“The damage of the hut is very (bad) and it can fall anytime and we are not sleeping there anymore. The rain caused the house to fall and it can fall anytime and then the other people are forced to move to other relatives to sleep there. We are terrified for our kids and anytime it can fall and we don’t know how we can solve it because we don’t have any money now. We are suffering as you can see the picture of the home. Poverty is real,” says Mkhabele.
Tropical depression brings with heavy rains to Limpopo
A stone’s throw away, Constatia Chauke , who has two toddlers, escaped unhurt when their mud hut collapsed. The hut now resembles a pile of sand.
Chauke says she has been left traumatised by the incident. She says she is lucky to be alive.
“When the house fell I was with my children and now, I sleep with my mother-in-law. That is not correct, because I can’t sleep with my mother in-law and it’s too scary. Even now, I’m not free,” says Chauke.
Spokesperson for the Collins Chabane Municipality, George Sithole, says they have started providing relief to the affected families.
“As a municipality, we received 59 cases of affected households and we assess the households. In the interim, we are going to provide them with food and tents where there is a need and tents where the need arises and we believe that in future, we are going to present this to Cogta for the provision of houses, if possible,” says Sithole.
Heavy rains caused by the tropical storm also washed away low-lying bridges and damaged houses in other parts of Mpumalanga, Limpopo and Kwazulu-Natal.
Tropical storm Eloise leaves a trail of destruction in Limpopo;
