‘I just ran. I ran as fast as I could. There was nothing I could do. Houses were disappearing and people were crying for help but there was nothing I could do.”
These were the heart-wrenching words of Dikeledi Molotsane, a survivor of Sunday’s deadly tornado which tore through the tiny Free State town of Ficksburg.
As provincial government officials on Monday took stock of the damage, which saw the storm flattening large sections of the town’s Meqheleng informal settlement, miraculous stories of survival and heroism emerged as survivors began to piece their lives together.
And while scores of families were left virtually unscathed by the late afternoon storm, eight-year-old Thabane Mkhekhe was killed when he was crushed by the collapsing walls of his parents’ two-roomed RDP home.
He was in one of the 48 homes – four brick houses, 10 RDP houses and 34 shacks – flattened by the storm. On Monday, the reality of what had happened had yet to hit home for Thabane’s father, Vincent.
“I was at a funeral outside Meqheleng when I saw this cloud hit the ground. It was pitch black and was coming straight towards us. Houses were disappearing. They just vanished as the cloud came towards us.
“You could see it twisting faster and faster. It was so loud.”
Fearing for his family as he watched it approach his house, he ran home. “I kept running and calling them. I could see my house and then it was gone. I just stood there.
“I was so scared. I screamed for my wife and Thabane but no one answered,” Mkhekhe said, pointing to the spot just metres away from his house where he had stood as the tornado miraculously passed over him.
Unable to explain how he had survived, he described how he frantically searched for his family, eventually finding his wife outside with minor injuries. His son was underneath his bed.
“He was still alive, crying softly. I tried to make him speak but he couldn’t. He was shaking and was cold. I tried to keep him warm, but he died. He died in my arms. I tried to save him but I couldn’t,” he said.
Molotsane, a neighbour of the Mkhekhe family, speaking from the ruins of her home, said: “It sounded like people screaming. When I heard the noise I ran to the door.”
At the door she was confronted by a towering, swirling wall of black clouds tearing down on the informal settlement. Running back into her home, Molotsane hid under a table as the winds struck her shack.
Flattening the walls, ripping off the roof and bending sheets of corrugated iron around a nearby electricity pole, Molotsane hung on to the table for dear life.
“I couldn’t hear anything. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t see. It was as though it was the middle of the night,” she said.
As the wind swept her table into the sky, Molotsane ran out and clung to a tree as she tried to escape the deadly winds. “I could see Thabane’s mother in her house. She was crying and calling me. I tried to reach her but I couldn’t.
“Bricks and dust were flying everywhere. Their house just disappeared. It was as though it had never been there,” she said, fighting back tears. Molotsane eventually reached a nearby brick home which had miraculously survived the storm.
Molotsane said the tornado was gone as quickly as it had started.
“In eight minutes it was over. It was there one minute and then it was gone. The winds just suddenly stopped. Everything went quiet and then the screaming started.
“People were trapped under bricks, roofs and pieces of metal. Everywhere you looked people were hurt. It felt like the end of the world. I thought it was hell,” she said.
Cowering inside his shack, Louis Tlome was pinned to the ground when the tornado struck his home.
“Suddenly the walls were gone. Everything just vanished. My fridge, bed and clothes. I tried to get out of the house and then the stove I was making a fire in hit me. It started burning my legs. I was screaming for help and trying to move, but I couldn’t.”
Neighbours, hearing his calling, raced to his rescue, pulling him free and carrying him to safety. - Pretoria News