Lacey Road informal settlement bands together after devastating fire
Lacey Road residents who lost their homes in a devastating fire last week have begun rebuiling their homes.
FAMILIES at the Lacey Road informal settlement have started rebuilding their homes following a devastating fire that destroyed at least 100 shacks and left as many families homeless.
SEE VIDEO: Massive fire rips through Lacey Road informal settlement
Details of the origins of the fire which tore through the settlement last week Friday are still sketchy, with some residents saying it started from an unattended stove and others saying it was an electrical fire due to faulty wiring.
Nevertheless, the community has bandied together to help rebuild the lives and homes of those who lost everything.
Women carrying children on their backs, old men, young men and boys were all working in some capacity to help.
Sphiwe Ngcamu, a resident and Ward 31 committee member, was one of the few people fortunate enough to not have their homes destroyed.
When Berea Mail visited the informal settlement, Ngcamu was busy building a house from scratch for a family of five.
“Fortunately, there were no injuries from the fires but people did lose a lot of their belongings,” said Ngcamu.
“We have spent the whole weekend building the homes thanks to material supplied by the eThekwini Municipality. Unfortunately though, it does not look like it is going to be enough for everyone who lost their homes.”
With winter setting in, a lot of the now homeless people have taken shelter in their neighbour’ s homes.
A community ravaged by fire has found solidarity through tragedy.
At 9am everyday, a vehicle drops off more than a dozen loaves of bread donated by eThekwini Outreach.
The women prepare the sandwiches and the children distribute them to everyone. This process is repeated three times a day.
“In consultation with the committees here, we realised that the most important thing now is getting the shacks built instead of sending goods and relief over. We made arrangements for meals to be sent for them daily and certain clothing for those who really have a need for it,” said Imtiaz Syed, of eThekwini Secure/Outreach.
Sphamandla Gumede and his brother were not at home when the fire burned his home and all his belongings to the ground. He saw news of the fire on social media.
“It was a surreal thing to experience but now I am over it. I just want to rebuild and hopefully get things back to normal,” he said.
Gumede is still waiting to be allocated material, families with women and children have been given first preference.
One of the oldest residents of the Lacey Road informal settlement is David Libelwane, who moved there in 1992 back when there were at least five houses, he said.
Now there are over 200 shacks cramped together in a short square kilometre.
“We have only had fire three times here and the last time was long ago, before they put electricity boxes. This is certainly the most devastating one,” he said.
Libelwane was going around telling builders to keep a one metre distance between homes so it would be easier to re-install the wooden electricity poles.
He told Berea Mail that some residents have used the fire as an excuse to expand their shacks, adding that shacks being close together was what led to the fire being uncontrollable.
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