Lying in
the rubble of the guesthouse, only able to tell if it was night or day through
a tiny crack, Lindiwe Ndwandwe heard the screams of others beneath the debris
slowly turn silent.
For
five days the 33-year-old was trapped inside a toilet next to the dining hall
of the collapsed Synagogue Church of All Nations, breathing only through a
small hole in the wreckage.
In
the end, she was forced to drink her own urine to survive.
"It's
like a dream to me that really, it's me that came out from here," the
South African told
AFP on Saturday as she surveyed the remains of the church in
the Nigerian city of Lagos.
"I
don't believe it. The tears that I cry, it's because I don't believe."
A
total of 86 people were killed and dozens more left trapped when the guesthouse
attached to the church run by Nigerian preacher TB Joshua collapsed on
September 12. Some
350 South Africans were thought to be visiting the church in the Ikotun
neighbourhood of the megacity of Lagos when the three-storey building came down
during construction work.
Joshua,
one of Nigeria's best-known evangelical preachers referred to by followers
across the world as "The Prophet" or "The Man of God", on
Sunday pledged to go to South Africa to meet survivors and their families.
He observed a minute of silence at
his weekly morning service, and said he would "be travelling to South
Africa to meet people from South Africa and other nations... in memory of
martyrs of faith".
But
South Africa's largest opposition party on Sunday said it will push the
government to launch a class action against the church, where 84 of its
nationals lost their lives.
Democratic Alliance shadow foreign
minister Stevens Mokgalapa said the fact that rescue workers complained that
staff at the church had impeded their work in the immediate aftermath of the
disaster meant there could be cause for legal action.
"The DA believes that there is
now enough evidence for the South African government to, at the very least,
explore the possibility of a class action suit against the (church) on behalf
of the affected families," Mokgalapa said in a statement.
"It stands to reason that the
church and its members may be criminally liable for the death of a number of
South Africans who could have been rescued from the rubble if rescue work was
speedily permitted."
South Africa is sending a plane to
Lagos to retrieve survivors of the disaster, media outlets reported.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan
visited the church on Saturday and promised to investigate the cause of the
tragedy.
He said he would hold talks with
stakeholders in the construction industry on how to prevent such a thing
happening again, expressing his condolences to South African President Jacob
Zuma.
No comments:
Post a Comment
beloved readers drop your comments here.