‘My ceiling is on my floor’: Pretoria residents tell of destruction caused by a tornado

Pretoria residents feared for their lives when a tornado swept through parts of Montana on Tuesday afternoon.

Vox Weather meteorologist Annette Botha said the South African Weather Service still needed to confirm whether the sighting in the north of Pretoria’s suburbs of Doornpoort and Montana on Tuesday was a fully fledged tornado.

The extreme weather caused roads and bridges to flood, trees to be uprooted and roofs to be blown away, as well as multiple power cuts across the city.

Jada Motors employee Ayanda Phulangu described the storm as terrifying.

Strong wind

“The wind was very bad and I was very scared. It was the first time I saw something like that,” he said.

Phulangu said he was inside a mobile office when the tornado uprooted a tree which lifted the office block with them inside.

“The office block started shaking and moving from the inside. We stood against the door to keep it closed and the glass broke,” he said.

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His colleague, Kamogelo Makitla, said he was in a car busy reversing when a strong wind picked up.

“It happened for two minutes, and everything was ruined. The car was shaking,” he said.

Ceilings ripped off

Sand Piper complex resident Shirley Maluleka, who had to sleep at friends’ place last night after the tornado ripped the roof off her apartment on the third floor, said she had to find a new place to stay.

Maluleka wasn’t home during the storm on Tuesday afternoon.

“When I got home yesterday, the ceiling was still intact but then it continued raining. When I returned this morning, I found the ceiling on the floor.”

Maluleka’s neighbours, who are veterinarian students, were home when the tornado hit their complex and also ripped off the roof of their apartment.

The two students said they thought they were going to die.

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“We all have experienced extreme storms but this was different. This whole building was shaking and we were worried that the building would collapse on us,” said one student.

The other student said she had just knocked off from work and had taken off her shoes when the storm hit their apartment.

‘Like a movie’

“It just suddenly started raining hard and then the wind started blowing, but it wasn’t normal. So I ran to close the windows when I saw the swirl forming. The next thing the geysers flew off the roofs and our roof was ripped off.”

The students said after the storm, they put on their gumboots and went outside to see if the other residents in the complex survived the storm.

They then started helping to move cars.

“It was like something out of the movies, so unreal.”

Tshwane emergency services department spokesperson Lindsay Mnguni said they had activated the City Disaster Operations Centre following the orange level 6 warning issued by the weather service that was expected to bring disruptive rain over most parts of Gauteng, including Tshwane.

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