Duduza counts cost of tornado's devastation

"I was praying to God to spare me because I could see death coming."

This is what 26-year-old Xolani Segwatlhe was thinking moments before he was buried under rubble when a tornado carved a swathe through the township of Duduza, near Nigel on the East Rand.

Yesterday, distraught residents began sifting through the desolation that remained after Sunday afternoon's storm, now classified a force-two tornado by the SA Weather Service, meaning the wind speeds might have reached as much as 251km/h.

Many houses were reduced to knee-high piles of broken bricks and twisted corrugated iron, while wooden street poles were snapped in half by the violent force of the wind.

The tornado took less than five minutes to damage more than 558 houses seriously and leave an estimated 2790 people homeless.

The tornado was one of three fatal storms that hit South Africa at the weekend.

A nine-year-old boy was killed in Ficksburg in Free State when a tornado struck the town and caused a wall of his home to collapse on Sunday. And two men were killed by lightning and 14 others were injured near Estcourt in KwaZulu-Natal.

In Duduza, more than 160 people were treated for injuries at medical facilities.

Xolani Segwatlhe's mother, Francinah, described the terrifying moments before she was almost crushed by one of the township's 15m-high lighting towers, which crashed down on her house and collapsed the walls.

"I was busy cooking and my husband was watching television. The electricity was going off and on and it was very dark.

"Suddenly I heard bricks begin to hit the roof . We thought it was raining bricks," she said.

"I tried to run away, but then I saw these sheets of iron flying like papers in the air and I went back inside because they might kill me."

Francinah said she had been standing in the corner of her bedroom and thinks she was knocked unconscious by falling bricks.

The roof of her house had been blown off, and bricks were toppling from the top of the walls.

She was dragged from the house by her boyfriend, Charles Molefe, seconds before the light tower crashed on the house.

When Francinah came to, she began screaming for her son, who emerged from underneath a separate room at the back of the property.

"That was the door that saved me," said Xolani, pointing to a wooden door under which he had hidden as the room collapsed around him.

The Segwatlhe family's house may be ruined but they feel lucky to be alive.

Not so for the Mkhatshwa family, who live about 200m away.

Xolani Mkhatshwa, 8, was killed when one of the walls of their house fell on him after he was separated from his mother, Solva Mkhatshwa, during the storm.

She was inconsolable as she sat outside the jumbled wreckage of her home, friends and neighbours trying to comfort her.

"I can't even find the words to describe how I feel," she said.

The family now faces the same challenges as others in the area.

The municipality has asked them to register for assistance at the Duduza Multi-Purpose Community Centre, but families are too worried to leave their homes for fear the metal and bricks will be looted.

The Ekurhuleni municipality said yesterday a joint operations centre had been set up at the community centre, which will also be used as accommodation for those who could not a find place to stay with family or friends.

The council is building temporary structures on demolished sites and has provided 40 chemical toilets and water tankers.

Ekurhuleni mayor Mondli Gungubele has declared Duduza a disaster area "to expedite the channeling of resources to deal with the aftermath of this disaster".