Chatsworth family escapes injury after boundary wall collapses
|Published
Durban — A Chatsworth family of ten who are living in an RDP house are lucky to be alive after G-lock block boundary wall collapsed on their house while they were asleep on Tuesday.
The Masondo family in Bayview live along a small stretch of road in eThekwini Municipality ward 69. One of the family members, Nkosi Masondo believes that the wall collapsed because of the torrential rainfall since Sunday. Masondo said the house was slightly damaged by the falling debris. Masondo said the family were grateful that nobody was seriously injured, given the size and the amount of blocks that fell on the house.
Masondo and locals blamed the poor workmanship by a contractor that was awarded a tender to repair the road after it was damaged during the 2022 April floods.
“We are lucky that no one was injured. We were always complaining about the boundary wall since it was built because it was evident that the contractor had not done a good job. It was a question of time before it would collapse,” said Masondo
In addition, the bad weather aftermath caused Ezimbokodweni River bridge near Isipingo south of Durban to collapse, causing a huge traffic congestion on N3 southbound. Transport authorities in eThekwini are currently diverting motorists to use the old main road crossing Prospecton industrial area passing through Amanzimtoti suburbs and rejoining the N2 near Galleria Mall or using the Isipingo route towards KwaMakhutha then rejoining the N2 again.
Since Saturday the KZN Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs and South Africa Weather Services have been issuing warnings urging residents to stay indoors and flood prone areas to ensure they were safe. No warnings have been issued so far for Wednesday after weather services downgraded from level 5 yellow warning to a level 2 on Tuesday.
Local councillor Ganas Govender said he has been notified and has already reported the matter to the relevant municipality which has since cordoned off the area.
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