Tornado strikes close to home

MOKOPANE - The tornado that wreaked havoc in Gauteng on Monday also took its toll in Limpopo when it devastated the village surrounding the Hans Masebe school.
Extensive damage was inflicted on houses in the area and the well-built brick classrooms were almost totally destroyed in some cases, while others nearby escaped with roofs either missing or partially peeled back.
A 5-year-old boy, William Mavalela, was killed when a wall of his home caved in on him. Some 50 people were treated by hospital staff for an assortment of injuries, including cuts and lacerations from flying sheets of corrugated iron.
The tornado then moved on to the Anglo American open-cast Platinum Mine, leaving an intermittent damage swathe of 200 to 250m, skipping over the boundary fence and railway line and inflicting a range of damage to mine facilities.
Roofs were peeled back or selectively removed. Small to medium size trees were either twisted off or uprooted, to be deposited elsewhere (one still upright!).
Sand and gravel deposits adjoining mine heaps were also scoured and striated in arcs, while mine heaps of some 40 to 60m high were “mud blasted” up to a height of 30m.
A closely parked line of tipper trucks each had their right hand side window popped outward and smashed. It is miraculous that no mine employees were killed or injured, with the tornado coming through at about 22h00 at the time of a shift change.
Two mine employees in a bakkie report that their vehicle was either “moved slightly” or temporarily “levitated”, but that they escaped unscathed, with no damage to the bakkie.