SHOPKEEPERS gathered yesterday to survey the damage left in the wake of a fire that swept through three shops in the Edwards Building in Union Street on Wednesday afternoon and salvage what they could from the burnt-out shops.
Eileen Piater, Area Manager for Vanda Cosmetics, told the Zululand Observer the damage could easily run into the hundreds of thousands of rands.
‘It is difficult to determine now. We will just have to wait and see,’ said Piater.
Cash registers, CCTV camera equipment and computers were damaged in the fire.
Thandi Dumakude, owner of Thandi’s Dressmaker, sat outside the building with clothing and dresses heaped on the ground behind her.
The clothing salvageable amounted to very little.
Dumakude has been making dresses for almost 15 years and lost all her equipment such as sewing machines.
‘All seven of my machines are gone,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen.’
Dumakude hired out some of her clothes, using her sewing machines to make new clothes on order.
The herbalist doctors’ shop sustained the most damage during the fire.
The cause of the blaze is still being investigated.
@kcowan23
