Taxi crashes into woman's house

WHEN Jabulile Hadebe sat down yesterday morning to listen to music she had no idea that minutes later a taxi would crash into her house.

Hadebe, 36, narrowly escaped death when a taxi and a construction bakkie collided and landed in her house on Ngome Road in KwaMashu township, north of Durban, during the rush hour.

The drivers lost control of their vehicles and veered into two neighbouring houses. The taxi drove into Hadebe's dining room and left her with minor injuries to her leg.

Hadebe said she did not know how she survived.

"I saw a bakkie driving on the side of the road passing my house.

"A few seconds later, I heard a loud bang and realised that a taxi had driven into the house and hit my couch in the dining room," she said.

The impact forced Hadebe off her couch and she rolled to the other side of the house.

The back of her house was damaged.

"I was only hit by the bricks that fell from the wall," she said.

Hadebe said she was happy that her family members were not in the house because many people would have been injured considering the extent of the damage.

"We have no place to sleep because the house is damaged.

"And we want the taxi owner to fix our house. It's not the first time that cars have driven into our home.

"We asked Linda Xaba, our councillor, to assist us by putting up guardrails to avoid such things," Hadebe said.

Both drivers on the scene were blaming each other for the accident.