Business people especially banana farmers have been severely affected by the recent storm near Hazyview in Mpumalanga.
Production Manager at Laurens Agri Rian van der Linde says almost all their banana plantations were destroyed by the storm and it will have a negative impact on their business as they were harvesting bananas daily on the farm.
Laurens says, ”I can tell you that we will not harvest probably for the next 18 months – that’s how long we need for the existing trees to recover those that are not demolished. I can tell you we probably have 90% damage of this farm. We have people staying on the farm they’ve also had damage roofs of their houses blown off.”
Meanwhile, the Shabangu family in Mahushu outside Hazyview is among more than two hundred households that were also affected by the storm. Three of their family members were injured after the roof of their house was blown off.
One of the family members, says they are in dire need of food and shelter.
One family member Colnert Shabangu says, ”There is no food and everything is a disaster. There’s nothing left so if we could get food to eat because we don’t have anything now.”
