Some 30 houses destroyed on 25 March by a wind and hailstorm at Gainachas in the //Kharas region are in need of restoration.
According to a report by the //Kharas Regional Council on 28 March, these houses are in urgent need of 110 corrugated iron sheets, 75 timber planks, 1 100 roof screws and 500 spikes.
“The majority of the people residing at Gainachas are pensioners and unemployed youth or household owners who will not be able to repair the damage caused by nature,” the report reads.
The incident did not only leave Jerry Tseitseimou (31) without a roof over his head, but also left him without an income.
“I had a caravan which I used as a tuckshop. It was blown from the side of the house to the fence, and it has been severely damaged,” he said on Thursday.
Tseitseimou requested the government or any good Samaritan to assist him in the provision of corrugated iron sheets for his roof and business.
“A caravan is expensive and is not easy to find. If I can get extra corrugated iron to build a tuckshop next to my house, I would be happy, because I do not have a place to operate my business from,” he said.
Tseitseimou said he was sitting in his living room with his pastor, while his wife went to their two children who were screaming in the bedroom during the storm.
On her way, the roof was blown off.
All of them rushed to one of the bedrooms, Tseitseimou said, which was the only place in their fourbedroom brick house that still had a roof.
No one was injured, but most of his electronic devices were ruined, he said.
“There was nothing I could save,” he said.
Tseitseimou said his family has been left traumatised.
“If we talk about that night, they don’t want to hear about it,” he said.
He now lives at a church, where residents from some of the 10 severely affected homes have been sheltered, while others are accommodated in tents supplied by the regional council.
However, residents of the 18 minor damaged households still live at their homes, the report indicates.
The wind also blew off the roof of Joseph Motinga (55), who still lives at home.
“The part that has still not been destroyed is my bedroom, so I am still sleeping there. I transported my belongings to my mother’s house,” he said on Thursday.
The wind blew the roof off about two minutes after he arrived home with two of his friends, he said.
“Everything was soaked in water in the living room,” he said.
Motinga said the reality of the situation only set in the next day.
“The other day when I fetched the corrugated iron and poles kilometres from my house, I realised I have a problem,” he said.
Berseba constituency councillor Jeremias Goeieman on Thursday said the council has forwarded the report to the Office of the Prime Minister for further assistance.
The regional council has provided the 30 households with drought-relief food.
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