About R15-million is needed to rebuild homes that were destroyed in a freak storm in Durban’s Molweni area, the Mercury newspaper reported on
Tuesday.
The KwaZulu-Natal social welfare department said eight people were killed, 50 injured and hundreds of homes destroyed in the storm that occurred on Friday.
S’bu Hadebe, who is coordinating the relief effort from KwaZulu-Natal Premier S’bu Ndebele’s office, said an initial assessment suggested that more than 700 homes needed to be rebuilt.
”Our report has revealed that 768 houses were completely destroyed in the storm and it will take an estimated R15-million to rebuild them.”
He said additional money was needed to repair 338 houses that were structurally damaged and 178 houses that had their roofs blown away.
On Tuesday Ndebele and KwaZulu-Natal minister for social welfare Meshack Radebe were expected to revisit the Molweni area to ”help the community clean up and rebuild their houses”.
Two children, Samkelisiwe Nzunga (10) and Sanele Hlongwane (9) were among the victims. They had just come back from school when their house collapsed.
Nzunga’s mother, Nokwenza (32) said her daughter was already dead when they found her, and Sanele died a few minutes after he was rescued.
”I still can’t believe they are gone … It hurts, only God knows why it happened,” she said. — Sapa