Sawdust landslide buries house, kills 2

◆ rains that were received in the area for the greater part of last week.

Following the incident, Wattle Company which owns Nyanga Timbers evacuated survivors to Selbourne Primary School and provided them with all the necessary supplies while planning on where to settle the affected families.

In an interview at the scene, the company’s managing director, Mrs Victoria Jakazi, passed condolences to the bereaved families, and promised to provide all the necessary assistance to those affected.

“This is a sad incident, and we have since evacuated everyone from the affected staff blocks. We have never experienced such a disaster before. We are grieving with the deceased’s families. It rained heavily resulting in the landslide that wiped out the whole block of staff rooms. Unfortunately, the rooms had two occupants who sadly failed to make it.

“While we have evacuated our staff from the affected houses, we are also working on improving the drainage system around the staff compound to avert future mishaps. This staff compound was built in the 1990s when the sawmill was opened,” she said.

Mrs Jakazi said the company footed all the funeral expenses for the two deceased people.

“The company catered for all the transport costs, coffins, food for the mourners and everything that has to do with a funeral as we are also grieving with the families. We were shocked by this incident and hope it will never happen again,” she said.

At least 100 people were evacuated from the compound village to Selbourne Primary School while waiting relocation.

One of the evacuated, Ms Anna Bhero (20) said they lost property worth thousands of dollars as a result of the landslide.

“We lost everything and we are being accommodated at Selbourne Primary School where we were evacuated to. We lost all our belongings including important documents like birth certificates and national identity cards,” she said.