A Grahamstown man was killed when his home collapsed on top of him in last week's strong winds and heavy rain. Sakhekile Nkompo, 33, was alone in his house when it fell on him early on Thursday 4 June.
A Grahamstown man was killed when his home collapsed on top of him in last week's strong winds and heavy rain. Sakhekile Nkompo, 33, was alone in his house when it fell on him early on Thursday 4 June.
It was obvious he had struggled to free himself from the debris, his family said.
The incident took place in the informal settlement of Hlalani, on the south-east slope of Makana's Kop, overlooking the upper end of Dr Jacob Zuma Drive.
Brother Enoch Nkompo, said their other brother, Dibhari Nkompo, told him Sakhekile's body was still warm when he pulled him out of the debris.
He'd been struggling to free himself.
“It happened at about 7am. I had to take off early from work when I received a call telling me about the death of my brother,” Enoch told Grocotts Mail.
“It took the police and an ambulance an hour to [arrive]and he was already cold then,” he continued.
Makana mayor Zamuxolo Peter and his council visited the incident, saw the collapsed house and promised to keep visiting the family.
There was no immediate promise of assistance; however, Makana's disaster unit manager Khuselo Qupe visited the family this week to see what could be done for them. Sakhekhile lived on his own.
Also in the north-east of the town, several houses in Hooggenoeg and Phola Park were damaged.
Reports emerged this week of damage in Zolani.
For Hooggenoeg resident Rosie Swart, it was the second time the walls of her house had collapsed – the first was this time last year.
She told Grocott's Mail it was around 9am when her grandchild rushed into her room to tell her one of the corrugated iron sheets had blown off the roof.
When she went to look, the sheet was hanging down into her kitchen by a piece of wire.
When the next piece fell, the children ran out of the house, she said.
Then the walls started collapsing.
When Grocott's Mail arrived, the walls of her kitchen and bathroom had entirely collapsed and the entire south side of her home was open to the elements.
The noise was deafening as loose corrugated iron sheets banged in the wind – still strong almost 12 hours after it began in the early hours of Thursday.
Swart shouted over the noise of the banging and the wind tearing through her home.
She is unemployed, she said. She moved into the house with her former partner in 1995.
Sections of wall lay inside and outside the rooms.
"I really don't know how I'm going to sort this out," she said.
Phola Park residents Philisiwa Tetani and Michael Moli were awoken around 1am as the first corrugated iron sheets began to loosen themselves from the wattle and daub house.
"We couldn't sleep," Moli told Grocott's Mail. "The rain came in, and it was so cold. Our blankets, our beds got wet.
"Look there at my child's bed."
Against a mud wall was a bed with a pink cover. A large sheet of corrugated iron was angled down on to it.
"That just missed my child," Moli said.
Their daughter Sinovuyo, 13, is staying with her grandmother in Extension 10. Next to her bed an encyclopaedia and a wooden treasure box painted with blue dolphins lay covered in mud and debris.
Other family members were huddled around a fire made with scrap wood on a metal panel inside the kitchen.
In the middle of the day, the car thermometer had earlier read 10C.
"The rain fell straight into our paraffin supply," Moli said.
"Now we have nothing to cook with."
Like others in the area, they were desperate for Makana Municipality's disaster relief team to reach them so they at least had plastic sheeting to protect them from more rain expected that night.
Municipal spokesperson Yoliswa Ramokolo said around12 houses had been reported damaged by late last Thursday.
She said many families had reported that the roofs and walls of their homes had collapsed in the floods.
Because of the damage caused by the storms, employees from the electricity and parks and recreation departments had remained on standby.
Electricity cables were damaged and trees fell in the heavy rains and winds.
The persistent rainfall had made it difficult for electricians to fix the damage, Ramokolo said.
Many areas remained without electricity on Wednesday night.
Ramokolo said Nkompo's death was the only serious incident reported.
Mayor Zamuxolo Peter had gone to Nkompo's home to offer his family condolences.
Peter and other councillors and officials visited damaged homes yesterday, according to Ramokolo.
"One of the problems that we experienced was the fact that people did not want to leave their homes because they were afraid of losing their valuables," she said.
Ramokolo said they ran out of plastic sheeting very early in the day because there was a huge demand for them, but they hoped to receive more.
Some of the newly built Extension 10 houses failed to withstand the severe weather conditions.
Ramokolo said residents had reported flooding and leaks.
"The roofs are leaking because the roof tiles fell off," she said.
Areas with extensive damage, according to Ramokolo, were Phaphamani; Phola Park and Zolani.
Officials met to draw up plans to assist those affected.
On the other side of town, there was drama at the site of the Waainek wind farm on the Highlands road, as winds of around 48 metres per second blew several containers over, and dragged cranes off their counterweights.
Site manager for turbine manufacturer Vestas, Llewellyn Scott, said they had measured wind speeds of 40-46 metres per second.
At 48 m/s he had closed the site for the day.
"It was too dangerous," he said.
Trucks delivering components remained parked at the start of the Highlands road opposite Waainek water treatment works, from Wednesday.
Margie Antrobus, who lives on a farm on the Highlands Road, described the weather as "totally wild".
"I can't actually remember when last I felt the wind so much," she said.
"It was unusual – first from the north, then the west, coming in waves.
She said they'd measured more than 50mm rain since Wednesday night, and their power supply had been off since 8am on Thursday 4 June.
Measuring between 73mm and 88mm of rain last week, Grocott's Mail's rain-monitoring team described the weather as extremely unusual.
Jim Cambray said that in one day they had received almost as much rain (37mm) as they'd had for the 29-year average of 37.5mm for the month of June.
