17 Feb 2016

It was a disastrous Valentine’s day for some residents of Kazungula as a storm tore their houses apart, leaving some with serious injuries on Sunday evening.

As a result of the storm, power was out for several hours, delaying relief efforts by the disaster management team. At the Kgalemang household, which is made up of 29 family members, five of them under the age of 12 were injured when some bricks hit them.

“When the bricks started falling, some of the small children were scared and they scattered all over the house with some attempting to hide under the bed,” said their 18-year-old elder sister, Ms Onkgoletse Kgalemang.

She explained that as a result, one of those who hid under the bed was badly wounded and was hospitalised at Kasane Primary Hospital at the time of the interview.

Although, four others were discharged, some had cuts on their limbs from the corrugated sheets and an 11 month-old baby was also said to have sustained some injuries on her shoulder from the falling bricks.

By the time of the interview, the family had been given a tent and some blankets. However, they had not had any dinner the night before or breakfast in the morning as their food was damaged by the rains. All of the 12 school-going children had to miss school as their uniforms were also soaked in the rains.

Another Kazungula resident, Ms Eunice Manewe, related that the violent winds ripped off her roof around 4pm.

“I was scared so I ran outside the house towards the outside toilet, leaving my standard seven son to find refuge in the car parked outside my house,” she narrated. After the storm calmed, she sought help from neighbours and called the police for help who relayed the message to the district commissioner’s office.

At the time BOPA team visited her yard, her furniture was soaked in water and she had used her personal tent to accommodate the family. Another resident, Ms Namata Marichi lost the roofing of her two roomed house, leaving her furniture and electronic appliances exposed to the rain.

“A team from the Botswana Defence Force came to our rescue and erected a tent for me and other affected tenants in the yard,” she said, adding that they also received blankets.

Ms Marichi emphasised that the winds were too strong and peeled off her corrugated iron roofing almost instantly. The Chobe district commissioner, Mr Keolopile Leipego, who was on site at the time of the interview, confirmed that he had received 13 cases of households that were affected by the storm.

“We are going around doing assessments as the District Disaster Management team. However, we were slowed down by the power outage in setting up tents for the affected families but we are on track,” he said.

Mr Leipego had liaised with the council secretary to source food packages for the affected families amidst ongoing assessments. Ends