‘Disaster’, Binga’s Siabuwa Rural District Hospital heavily damaged by hailstorm

BY NOKUTHABA DLAMINI

Siabuwa Rural District Hospital in Binga was on Tuesday heavily damaged by a hailstorm, leaving expecting mothers and other patients without appropriate shelter.

Binga district medical officer Simbarashe Manjengwa told VicFallsLive that the heavy rains hit the institution around 1PM.

“According to the report that I received this evening, the storm happened approximately around 1PM where waiting mothers’ shelters were completely destroyed by the raging winds together with admission wards and staff quarters,” Manjengwa said.

Manjengwa said although he had not received any reports of fatalities and injuries, the hospital’s furniture was severely damaged by the rains.

“Right now, our nurses have no shelter, and their personal belongings were destroyed after their quarters roofs were blown away,” he said.

“We will be sending some teams tomorrow morning (Wednesday) to do the damage assessment, but there was no report of any admitted patients, waiting mothers or our nursing staff being injured.

“We will then establish how many patients were there and how they managed to escape.”

The Meteorological Services Department has forecast heavy rains throughout the country beginning this week.

In February last year, Binga South constituency where the hospital is located was hit by flash floods that destroyed 215 households and displaced 967 people, 58 percent of them being children.

The disaster struck when the confluence of Simbwambwa, Sikande, Namapande and Manyenyengwa rivers was flooded following incessant rains.

According to the Civil Protection Unit director Nathan Nkomo, the families are yet to be relocated after the government pledged to build new homesteads for them.

In a recent interview with VicFallsLive, Nkomo said the government had only managed to build six of the 37 targeted houses although they were still at the roof level.

Nkomo said the government needs about $80 million to construct the homesteads.