Hope fades for family of girl swept away by floods
The parents of the three-year-old Alexandra girl who was swept away during the flash floods have lost hope that their child will be found alive.
|||Johannesburg - The parents of the three-year-old Alexandra girl who was swept away during the flash floods on Wednesday have lost hope that their child will be found alive.
Everite Chauke’s father had lost his grip on her as the branch of a tree they’d taken refuge in snapped and they fell into the water below.
On Monday, Gauteng Social Development MEC Nandi Mayathula-Khoza visited the girl’s family in Setswetla section of Alexandra.
Her parents were visibly distressed and confused.
“I didn’t get to see where my baby went,” said Chauke. “Everybody is telling me to be strong, but I can’t. Wherever I go I see her.”
Mayathula-Khoza said the family were in pain and were waiting for the child’s body to be found. “They requested trauma counselling to help them deal with what the father described as a terrible accident’.”
Chauke’s younger sister, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “The whole family have accepted that Everite is no longer with us.
“Her father has requested the rescue team to dig the ground for her body because if she were on any riverbank, they would’ve found her by now.”
More than 800 people displaced by the floods are being accommodated at a shelter in Extension 19 of the township.
Among them is Blessing Baloyi, a 25-year-old single mother-of-two, whose belongings were damaged.
“I was at home in Extension 7 when I saw water enter the house. I managed to flee with my children from the house that was filling up with water, and instantly everything was destroyed,” she recalled.
Meanwhile in Benoni, the family of 34-year-old Caroline Sithole, who drowned, are heartbroken. On Monday, her family went through the painful task of identifying her body and were left in shock as their worst nightmare became a reality.
Sithole, who was six months pregnant, was one of at least eight people killed during the flash floods. Her BMW was found in the Eastleigh Spruit in Edenvale on Friday morning.
Her body was found further down the spruit near the N3 on Saturday morning by informal recyclers.
“The family are devastated, they got back from the morgue a short while ago and haven’t stopped crying,” said a relative who asked not to be named.
“It has come as a real shock, we are emotionally drained. It’s just so hard,” the family member said. The relative explained that they realised something was wrong when Sithole had not fetched family members from work as she normally did.
“Everyone was enquiring and wondering where she was. We tried to call her cellphone but it was off, and that’s when we started to panic.
“We didn’t sleep the whole of Wednesday night. We were driving around Edenvale asking anyone and everyone if they’d seen her or her car,” the relative said.
Eventually, the family went to Edenvale Hospital, and then the police, but had no luck.
Sithole, who was a florist, was described as a “warm and welcoming person” who was “full of life and energy”.
june.hlongwane@inl.co.za
ilanit.chernick@inl.co.za
The Star