Heavy rains leave student hostels, property in ruin
A group of tertiary students renting an accommodation hostel of more than 40 units lost all their belongings following the heavy rains that battered Tlokweng and nearby places throughout Saturday night.
Early this week, The Midweek Sun to affected and devastated tenants of businessman Dr Maboko Keloneilwe. They recounted how on Sunday morning they listened fearfully to the rain drumming on their roof while still lying in bed.
However, they got the shock of their lives when they felt what appeared like rain water dropping on them. When they looked up, the roof was gone!
“I jumped out of bed so abruptly I nearly broke my leg, the roof was literally gone, I was standing on a room with no roof and water was pouring in wetting everything in the house. The rain was vicious, thunder roared loudly and lightning struck, forcing us to drop everything and rush to hide in the bathrooms,” one of the affected tenants narrated.
They stay in a student accommodation hostel of more than 40 units, however, only eight units have been affected. Those affected watched helplessly from the bathrooms as rain destroyed their belongings.
“We have nothing, our clothes, furniture, books, laptops, food and just everything is destroyed. Nobody was able to save anything. We are just here with nothing. We have been sleeping with others here and it is very crowded. We were paying P900 per month for the single room we lived in,” they explained.
They said that Keloneilwe was busy at work on Sunday putting new roofing on the affected houses but the works are not yet complete. They allege that when they confronted him about the damage caused by rain, he asked to be temporarily excused to map a way forward.
“We are not sure what the way forward will be. The amount of water that was inside those rooms reached knee level. We are not sure if we will get compensated or what. We are suspecting that the roofing was not properly done on those houses. “There is no how corrugated roofing sheets can just fly off together with rafters. We did not go to school on Monday because we had nothing to wear.”
Fortunately, none of them was physically harmed but they are currently battling emotional trauma. They are unable to sleep at night as they re-play the happenings of this past weekend, some reported that they are now down with flu as a result of the cold weather and coming into contact with huge amounts of rain water.
Keloneilwe who is also Director at Gaborone Physiotherapy Clinic did not respond to messages left for him regarding the matter. His phone repeatedly rang unanswered and he was not available at his office either.