Orphanage on the road to recovery

Since an orphanage that housed 24 children burnt down in June the operators have been in the process of rebuilding.

The house that was donated by Mr Tariq burnt down on June 12 during a water and power outage in the area.

The house in Pine Ridge that housed 24 orphans

According to them the children are still staying at the temporary lodging at the Mosque while they wait for the insurance claim to be processed before they can start rebuilding. They were apparently waiting for the report from the fire department which was released on June 26 before they could continue with the claim.

Rebuilding may take another couple of weeks but since the news hit the front page of last week’s WITBANK NEWS, the community of eMalahleni has reached out to offer their assistance which has been most welcome and appreciated by those affected by the incident.

The statement released last week by the municipality explains how the fire was extinguished.

“They responded timeously to the call and arrived at the scene with a fire tanker and extinguished the fire. However, the water got finished almost 8000 litres before the fire was totally extinguished. There was no water and electricity at Pine Ridge, and Water Works was contacted to bring a water tanker. They eventually came but it was after a long time and the fire had already done damage. Then dumping down was done by the fire staff,” read the statement.

However a statement issued by DA Cllr Shafie Jallal who was present on the night of the incident specifically contradicts the municipal statement which read,

“Cllr Jallal noted that it took the fire department two hours to arrive at the orphanage only for the fire engine to run out of water.”

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