Severe storms claim life in Tshwane

The deceased was one of a group of four people who were struck by lightning along the R55 road.

"I can confirm that four patients were struck by lighnting, unfortunately one patient passed away on scene from his injuries, one was in a critical condition and was transported to hospital and two with less sever5 injuries were also transported to hospitals", says GEMS spokesperson JP von Benecke.

Meanwhile, uprooted trees caused widespread damage leaving parts of the Tshwane area without power.

Tshwane Emergency Services spokesperson Charles Mabaso says shacks were also damaged in the Cullinan area in the east and in Hammanskraal in the north of the capital city area.

"We had multiple incidents of events that were caused by the storm, in Centurion we had multiple trees that were uprooted leading to ppwer failures in some areas. In Cullian, we had multiple shacks that were blown away by the storm. There are ongoing assessements to determine the number of affected households.

"Before 11pm, we had reports of about 40 shacks in Hammanskraal that were blown away, the commuity refused to be relocated to a guest house for temprary housing.

"In Mamelodi, we had a tree that fell on a shack and a child was injured and transported to hospital with their uninjured mother, and two other houses had trees falling on them, but there were no injuries reported."

On social media platform X, the City of Tshwane says teams are battling power outages caused by the storm in most parts of the region.

"Last evening’s (Tuesday) severe storm has caused massive damage and led to area power outages across most parts of the city. The storm has uprooted trees and in some areas tree branches have fallen on the road or fell on overhead powerlines, causing a power trip.

"Teams are obviously overwhelmed by these enormous task, but are doing their utmost best to restore power, amid the difficultly of inclement weather which will impact restoration times."

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