PARENT DIES AFTER SCHOOL ROOF COLLAPSES ON HER

The Jerusalem Primary School wall that collapsed on top of a parent. (Pic: Andile Nsibande)

JERUSALEM – Tragedy struck the small community of Jerusalem when a school demolition project went wrong and claimed the life of a parent.

The mother of three died while undergoing treatment in hospital, after she was injured when a section of the roof above her collapsed while she was demolishing an old stick-and-mud structure at Jerusalem Primary School, which was being used as a classroom for pupils.

Jerusalema is situated about 25km to the east of Hlatikhulu. The incident happened a week ago.

Demolition

Ironically, the demolition was meant to avert disaster as school authorities were afraid the structure could fall on the pupils anytime, as its walls had developed huge cracks; but unbeknown to all concerned, the attempt at being proactive ended up claiming a life.
The school had recently got a revamp following the successful completion of the construction of two classrooms, through financial assistance from Micro Projects, which is under the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development.

The old structure had been used by the school authorities to motivate their request for the construction of the new buildings from the funders, school authorities said.
The head teacher of the school told this publication that the woman was working with other parents at the school when tragedy struck.
He said the parents were demolishing a dilapidated structure at the school on the fateful Thursday when she accidentally got hit by timber that supported the roof. The school administrator, however, did not want to comment further because he said he was not present at the school when the accident happened. “We have already reported the incident at the Regional Education Office.

However, I cannot commit myself further on the matter because I was not present when it all happened. The right person to talk to is the school chairperson,” he said.

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