News24 | A year on, families, survivors remember loved ones lost in George building collapse

Survivors Gabriel Guamba and Shadrack Maine light candles for their coworkers who died in the building collapse.

• A memorial service for those who died in the George building collapse took place on Tuesday.
• The collapse resulted in the deaths of 34 people.
• Many family members said they were still deeply grieving their loved ones.

Mercy Ndambo’s son, Frank, will never know his mother. He was only a few months old when she died in a building collapse in George a year ago.

Too young to attend the memorial service for Ndambo, his guardian and Ndambo’s brother-in-law, Phellemon Mwalughali, attended the event at the George Town Hall, metres from where 6 000 tonnes came crashing down on 62 people in May last year.

“As soon as I came here, the first thing I did was to shed tears. It was as if that day was here again,” Mwalughali said.

“I’m raising her child; he is growing up without his mother. It’s going to be very hard for him to understand. I’m waiting, and I’ll be able to tell him about his mother when he’s older.”

Ndambo was among 34 people who died in the collapse, which has since been recorded as South Africa’s deadliest construction disaster.

READ | ‘For 34 of us, there was no time to say goodbye’: George building collapse victims remembered

On Tuesday, the gathering observed 34 seconds of silence, one for each lost life, and lit 34 candles.

For many, the day proved a heart-wrenching reminder of those they lost.

Working alongside Ndambo was cleaner Vuyokazi Singama, among the 28 people pulled alive from the rubble.

Singama, who spent two days trapped under layers of concrete and bricks, considers herself lucky to have made it out alive, while so many of her coworkers did not.

“Being back here today brings up a lot of pain. It’s a reminder of last year when we were trapped,” she said.

Singama added she was grateful to have survived to mourn her coworkers.

“If we had all died, who would be here to mourn them?”

In a tribute to the youngest victim, Sihle Mehlo, who was only 20 when she died, family friend Khanyi Fortuin recalled how Mehlo had stopped at her mother Rose’s office at the municipal office opposite the building site on her way to work.

“On that day, a very strange thing happened. When Sihle entered the office to come greet her mom, she said, ‘Mama, you’re so beautiful. Can I have a picture with you’?” Fortuin said.

That was the last picture the mother and daughter would take together.

READ | The Lead: Families, survivors commemorate the George building collapse one year on

“Sihle was so young and full of dreams. Sihle was working to become an electrician, following in her father’s footsteps,” Fortuin said.

Struggling to speak as tears flowed, Babalwa Ntentem, who lost her husband, Zakhele Ntentem, added: “He wasn’t just my husband. He was my friend. He was such a nice guy.”

Her last conversation with her husband had been early in the morning on Monday, 6 May, while the two were still in bed. They had spoken about their future, planning what they would do now that he had found a new job.

Speaking at the memorial, Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson said an investigation into the collapse was expected to be completed by the end of May.

It is one of several launched to find out what caused the collapse.

Among the completed probes are one by the Western Cape government and a forensic report compiled by the National Home Builders Registration Council that the national human settlements department commissioned.

Investigations by the Department of Labour and the police are still under way.