A woman who escaped serious injury when the bakkie she was in plummeted from the top floor of the collapsed Tongaat Mall, relives finding her sister partly buried in the rubble.
|||Durban - A woman who escaped serious injury when the bakkie she was in plummeted from the top floor of the collapsed Tongaat Mall, has spoken about the shock at finding her sister partly buried in the rubble nearby.
Nomthandazo Nxumalo said on Wednesday that her sister, Zakhithi Nxumalo, was lying face down, the lower half of her body buried under a concrete slab.
The 25-year-old mother of three, a recently hired construction worker at the site, died when concrete slabs caved in and fell on her on Tuesday.
Speaking to the Daily News after visiting the disaster site with her mother, Nomthandazo, 33, said part of her still could not believe her younger sister was dead.
“I am in shock. I’m confused, I don’t know how to even start explaining this to her children.”
Zakithi had two daughters, aged 3 and 8, and a 5-year-old son.
The Nxumalo sisters, from KwaMashu, had been unemployed and had gone to the construction site several times before they were hired four months ago as general workers.
They were getting ready to go home after their shift on Tuesday when the structure collapsed.
It was initially thought Zakithi was also in a bakkie when it plunged two storeys. However, Nomthandazo said she was alone in the bakkie and had been sitting inside because she had a headache and wanted to get some painkillers.
She was waiting for her sister, who was changing out of her work clothes, and other workers when the disaster struck.
Nomthandazo said she was sitting in the passenger seat and heard a rumbling sound, like thunder.
“I just saw the bottom floor come towards me.”
Dazed and shaken, but not seriously injured, she clambered out of the bakkie. With other construction workers, she started helping others who were hurt.
“I was helping pull up other people when I spotted her (Zakithi) and started calling her name. She didn’t answer.”
Nomthandazo said her sister was partly buried under a concrete slab. “We tried to lift it off her but it was too big and heavy.”
She said the ambulance then arrived and she was taken to hospital
Nomthandazo was only kept overnight, having escaped serious injury.
“I am just in a lot of pain. My chest, shoulder and back are throbbing but I didn’t break anything. They must have been impacted when the van hit the concrete.”
Nomthandazo went home after she was discharged from hospital then made her way back to the site with her mother.
A makeshift command office has been set up at the nearby Cane Cutters Restaurant, where police and other officials were taking down the names of the injured and survivors to determine if everyone was accounted for.
According to oThongathi police spokeswoman, Lieutenant Mandy Govender, there were also trauma counsellors present.
Nomthandazo had told her mother over the phone about the collapse and that she had been injured, but had kept the news of her sister’s death from her.
“I knew we had lost her but I somehow had hope. I could not lose hope when talking to our mother, I just couldn’t tell her over the phone,” she said, sobbing.
Her mother, whose identity Nomthandazo wanted to protect, had to be supported by her and a counsellor when they left the site on Wednesday after undergoing counselling.
The mother wailed uncontrollably and lost her footing as they walked to their car.
Said Nomthandazo: “I don’t know how I survived. God saved me. I wish He had saved Za (Zakithi) too.”
Daily News