Recent News...
Our latest Newsletters...
Masi Mail October 2011 - Royal Visit Special!
02/May/2011 - Fire in Masiphumelele
- 5000 people homeless
An unidentified man died in a fire which has displaced 5000 people at Masiphumelele informal settlement near Kommetjie, according to the Cape Town Disaster Risk Management Centre. About 5000 people were displaced by the fire, which destroyed about 1500 shacks and a number of formal houses overnight. Thirty fire engines responded to control the blaze, which started just after midnight.
The ‘official’ disaster relief operation has been extensive and impressive, doing any more than we have – mostly shipping donations of clothing to a central clearing point – would place us under the feet of the experts.
Amazingly few of our directly connected people [working as staff and tutors in education programmes, bursary students, for example] were made homeless – just two so far. Many more people who were attending programmes were affected. We have done something for them all.
We think there are a number [maybe three or four – 150/200 children/places] of informal crèches that were burnt-out but we are not yet clear how many – they will be a focus for our help when we can get near them to assess what we can do. Given all we know just now and provided nothing else turns up to surprise us, this is where we can spend more money to quickly get them back and functional. Without them the parents have few options for their children whilst they are at work. If we can, we will try to help have the crèches rebuilt to a better standard than the original.
If you can help, please click on 'Donate Now' - thank-you.
Photo: Brenton Geach, Cape Times
May 4 2011 at 16:11, More
from Cape Times