Restaurant used as ER after mall collapse
A TONGAAT restaurant was turned into an emergency room for injured labourers after the collapse this week of a shopping mall still under construction.
Rukash and Nirashni Adruthkumar, who own the Cane Cutters Bar & Restaurant, allowed 100 rescue workers to use the premises.
Police spokesman Lieutenant Mandy Govender said the couple handed over the keys to the police.
“They’ve given us hot meals [and] they’ve allowed the workforce use of their ablution facilities,” said Govender.
“There are more important things than just making money,” said Rukash, adding that he was relieved to see some of his regular customers who worked on the site emerge unhurt.
Among those not so lucky was Mozambican bricklayer Thomas Mindu, 27.
He said he was chatting to his colleague on the third floor of the doomed mall when the cement floor caved in.
“When I gained consciousness, all I could see was thick dust and smoke. I was practically buried under broken cement and metal from the scaffolding,” he said from his bed at Victoria Hospital in Tongaat.
“Men were screaming in pain all around me,” said Mindu, who was paid R60 a day.
His fellow countryman, Dino Mafumbu, 20, said the accident had “scarred” him for life.
“As soon as I get money, I will be going back home. I will never forget what happened and what I saw. I am thankful to have survived,” he said.
According to witnesses and emergency workers, a concrete slab the size of a soccer field collapsed, burying workers. A single mother, Zakithi Nxumalo, 35, and an unidentified 51year-old man were killed and 29 injured in the accident.
Yesterday, a rescue worker said there was still uncertainty over how many people or bodies were trapped under the rubble.
Skumbuzo Ngcobo, 24, who had been working on the site for four months, suffered a spinal fracture. He said he only realised he was hurt after he had pulled several people from the rubble.
Ngcobo, who earned R90 a day, said he had worked as a taxi conductor before becoming a labourer. — Taschica Pillay and Siphiliselwe Makhanya