MASERU — The heavy rains that pounded Maseru last week left three families homeless after their houses in Qoaling’s Ha-Besele area were destroyed and had their roofs ripped apart.
The families who lost their houses are some of the poorest in the area.
Among them is 86-year-old man who stays with his 60-year-old wife.
They are both unemployed.
Johannes Nkosi and his wife are staying with a neighbor after their house caved in during the storm last week Monday.
The roof was also blown away.
A crippled man who lives alone is also among the victims of the stormy weather that hit Maseru for the better part of last week.
Hlaoli Khohlooa is now living with relatives after his home was also destroyed.
Two orphans also had their home destroyed.
Their grandmother ’Mampho Mophoso said the children needed urgent help to rebuild their two roomed house which collapsed on Monday.
“The children have no one to turn to except me and I am too poor to do anything,” Mophoso said.
“I have reported the matter to the chief with the hope of getting help but it seems help will take a long time to come.”
Ha-Besele’s chief Napo Matsoso said he had reported the matter to the Disaster Management Authority (DMA) but he had not received any response from the authority.
“These people are seriously in need of urgent help,” he said in an interview with the Lesotho Times on Tuesday.
“All of them are very poor and besides that one of them is totally blind and cannot be expected to build a house.
“No member of their families, to my knowledge, is employed anywhere and this means they are completely unable to rebuild their houses.”
The Maseru district disaster management officer, Caroline Mohlabani, told this paper in an interview that she received the reports on Tuesday this week and her office was yet to examine the damage.
“I cannot promise anything now because my office is yet to examine the extent of the damage and after that we will know what steps to take,” Mohlabani said.
Nkosi said he was lucky not to have been crushed inside the house. He said he only knew that his house was collapsing when rocks started hitting him.
“Being blind I could not see anything and I could not run. I just lay there while stones piled on me,” Nkosi recalled.
“After sometime I heard people coming and they pulled me from under the rocks and took me to a neighbour’s house.”
“My whole body was in pain.”
When the Lesotho Times visited the village on Tuesday neighbours had volunteered to rebuild Nkosi’s house, using sandstones and soil.
