Incredible heroism

RELIEF: A man comforts his wife, a survivor of the Nigerian church hostel collapse, at OR Tambo International Airport yesterday
From Timeslive

Speared through the chest, a South African woman refused medical attention until she had helped free her critically injured friend from beneath the rubble of the collapsed Synagogue Church of all Nations, in Lagos, Nigeria.

Another South African woman sat holding her badly injured roommate, stroking her cheek, singing softly to her, as she died, pinned beneath a concrete slab.

Stories of the heartbreaking and heroic efforts of South Africans - many of them severely injured themselves - are emerging days after the collapse of the seven-storey guest house at the church.

As emergency workers continue to sift through tons of rubble in the hope of finding some of the scores of people still unaccounted for, including 17 South Africans, a picture of the first frantic moments after the collapse are emerging.

"What our people did in those moments is indescribable," said South Africa's ambassador to Nigeria, Lulu Mnguni, yesterday.

"The near superhuman effort to lift concrete slabs, provide life-saving treatment ... soothing words as people died ... it is heartbreaking.

"Those who ignored their injuries - many horrific - who refused treatment and stayed at the site are heroes.

"As we speak to the injured, who have lost limbs and suffered immense crush wounds, we are beginning to hear about what their fellow countrymen did to save them.

"We have a woman, speared through the chest by a steel bar. Somehow it missed all of her vital organs and spine. She pulled it out herself.

"The injury was horrific but she refused to leave her friends trapped under the rubble.

"She helped dig them out. Only once they were free did she go to hospital."

Mnguni said the injuries the 29 hospitalised South Africans had sustained were "terrible".

"People have lost legs, broken bones, crushed faces, serious internal injuries."

He said preparations were under way for identifying the dead at mortuaries.

"Seventeen South Africans are still missing. Ten bodies were pulled from the rubble today but we don't know who they are.

"We have identified some of our dead from identity documents but the wounds are just too horrific to say for sure who they are.

"This is why we have called for a team of specialists from South Africa ... forensic investigators and DNA specialists from the police, doctors, social workers and the military.

"Although we think we know who they are, we need families here to help us. The task is immense. All we want to do is save our people . to make sure everyone is accounted for and get the injured evacuated as quickly as possible.

"We want to get the bodies home so the loved ones can get closure."

But for many, including 58-year-old Kgomotso Mahlwele's three sons, Mpho, Tshepo and Tebogo, there is no closure.

"We can't eat, we can't sleep. We're angry and confused," Tshepo said.

Their mother flew to Nigeria on Wednesday last week with other congregants of the Peniel Christian Church, in Witbank, Mpumalanga.

It was her third pilgrimage.

Her sons, who last spoke to her on Friday morning, said she always returned from her trips to Nigeria "rejuvenated".

The brothers were yesterday among the people waiting at OR Tambo International Airport, near Johannesburg, hoping to be reunited with their relatives.

Until they learn of her fate they will be at the airport every day.

They have tried to hide the possibility of their mother's death from their 87-year-old grandmother, but Tshepo said she had found out about the collapse from news reports.

"We have had to give her medication so that she can sleep and calm down. What are we going to tell her when we arrive home empty-handed with no information on her last-surviving child?"

Mpho said the lack of action and information from the church and the South African and Nigerian government officials gave the family the impression that the authorities were treating the collapse "as a game".

"If it were their loved ones, they would have acted faster and treated it as more of an emergency than they are doing now."

The families of the missing have been asked to e-mail pictures of their relatives to the Department of International Relations and Co-operation at consular@dirco.gov.za.

The South African government is expected to shed more light on the Nigerian disaster at a media briefing this morning.

Church carries building 'curse'

Last week's collapse of the Synagogue Church of all Nations guesthouse in Lagos, Nigeria, is not the first time the cult-like movement has had one of its buildings damaged.

On three previous occasions at different sites, the church has had its properties damaged to various degrees.

The cause? Severe weather conditions.

The Nigerian organisation has said its first church was destroyed when strong winds blew off the roof.

The organisation's second church was destroyed when it was washed away by heavy rains in a flood.

According to the organisation, their third church also collapsed due to severe weather conditions.

It said of the previous collapses: "... in every situation, God is still saying something. Today, the SCOAN is an architectural masterpiece located in the heart of ... Lagos."