News from 25 years ago in the SUN (1996)

Toti all-rounder to play for South Africa

TOTI Cricket Club’s Lance Klusener has been selected to play for South Africa.
He is expected to be named as a member of the team to play against England in the fifth one-day international at Kingsmead.
A national newspaper contacted Lance to congratulate him at Toti Oval where he was playing for Toti’s first team against Pirates.
The newspaper had beaten the selectors to the telephone and Lance had no idea why they were congratulating him. Once the confusion had been cleared up, Lance expressed his delight at being selected.

Mother and daughter die in accident

SHERYL Bailey of Finesse Slimming Clinic died instantly in a car crash at Prospecton.
Sheryl (37) was a passenger in the car in which she was travelling with her family.
Her daughter, Candice, who just turned 11, sustained severe injuries and died in hospital. She was a learner of Doon Heights Primary.
The other injured were Sheryl’s husband Stephen and two of their other children, Bianca (6) and four-year-old Kerri-Anne.
It was at about 4pm when the Bailey’s car and a kombi collided at an intersection in heavy rain.

Crude oil fouls beaches

THICK blobs of crude oil believed to come from tankers offloading near Isipingo washed up on beaches as far as Toti.
Larry Singh of Isipingo Beach contacted the SUN when lifesavers told him the beach was polluted. The lifesavers were covered in oil and battling to clean it off. Singh contacted Sapref and was told the crude could not possibly come from the tanker moored at the buoy out at sea. He was told the crude probably came down the canal following the floods, washed from the effluent treatment plant. Larry said, however, the crude could not possibly have washed down the canal. The crude was of high quality and didn’t have any vegetation from the mangroves in it.

Isipingo is awash

HAD it not been for a few determined residents of Isipingo, Friday night’s flood could have been a lot worse.
Following the record rainfall of 225 millimetres on Friday, the Umlaas Canal burst its banks. Residents say the opening of the canal into the sea was not big enough to cope with the rapidly rising level of the water. When the first low-lying houses in Isipingo Beach were flooded at about midnight, concerned residents decided to do something themselves to prevent further damage to their homes. Using spades the residents dug a trench in the sandbank which was blocking the canal mouth. With a huge rush of water the canal washed the rest of the sandbank away in seconds. The level of the floodwaters rapidly dropped, and within half an hour the danger had passed.

Fish die following factory spill

INVESTIGATIONS have not linked the death of thousands of fish in the Isipingo lagoon to a chemical spill at a Prospecton factory.
Firemen from Toti and Durban were called out to clean up a spillage of highly corrosive chemicals at a Prospecton factory. The spillage of about 6 000 litres of ferric chloride occurred at Robertsons Spices as a result of a faulty joint in a recently installed storage tank and an open safety valve on a safety wall. Toti firemen and a specialist hazardous chemical spill team from Durban rushed to the scene to contain the chemical, which is used to dilute effluent from the plant.