Frank Maponya

Frank Maponya

The heavy rains that fell in Limpopo at the weekend have proved to be a godsend for livestock owners but a curse for other residents.

While everybody was praying silently for the rain to fall since the beginning of summer, some of the homeowners in the Burgersfort area have been hit hard since the rain destroyed their property.

Hardest hit was GaMashamothana village.

The storm damaged a sizeable number of houses in the village as well as roads.

A youth leader in the area, Aubrey Ngoatle, told Sowetan yesterday that roads were impassable since heavy rain fell on Friday night.

Ngoatle said several roofs were blown away and residents, a majority of whom are poor, would find it difficult to rebuild their homes.

"Some of the houses have been destroyed and household contents damaged," he said. "I doubt if the owners of the houses have the means to repair them."

A resident, Mogrel Seerane, said yesterday that it would take a long time before normalcy returned to the area.

"It was really traumatic to go through such an experience," Seerane said.

He said at one stage a motorists had to leave his car in the middle of the road when he realised he could not go any further.

As a result his car was buried by sand between huge rocks that had rolled on to the road because of the storm.

"Every house in the village was affected as the storm wreaked havoc. Some of the villagers, whose houses were destroyed, had to sleep under trees," Seerane said.