Residents of Angelo Squatter Camp are left to pick up the pieces as they prepare to identify their loved ones and start with funeral preparations. Seventeen people died in the area outside Boksburg in Ekurhuleni on Wednesday evening when they inhaled the poisonous nitrate oxide during a gas leakage. Ekurhuleni EMS said that the gas cylinder was used by illegal miners who operate from a shack in the squatter camp.

FAMILIES HEARTBROKEN

A distraught mother Judith Manyisa couldn’t hold back her tears as she begged for help to take her child’s corpse back home in Mozambique. She said she received a call that people were dying in Angelo and she rushed to check for her son, his wife, and their children. Judith told ZiMoja that she was on her way when she came across dead bodies and also inhaled some of the gas. "I came across a Jojo tank and washed my face and poured water all over my body just in case I came across a fire while heading to my son’s shack," she said. She said she dreaded the walk to her son’s shack because she wasn’t sure what she would find.

"When I got to my son’s shack, it was him, his wife, child, and one other person. They were all dead, all four of them but outside there were so many other people lying there. I can’t get that sight out of my mind. The only help I need is to take my son back home to Mozambique, I want him buried there," she said. Another community member, Fernando Shiburi said he lost his two brothers in the tragedy. "It was around 7 pm when I heard someone screaming that the whole community smelled like gas. When I went out I saw people dropping like flies and my immediate instinct was to rush to the garage up the road for safety. I thought brothers would be fine because we don’t share a shack only to discover that they didn’t make it. Unfortunately, we lost some of our belongings, meaning thugs took our escape as an opportunity to break into our shacks." Fernando said all that’s important to him now is to get his brother home for burial.

ZAMA ZAMAS BLAMED FOR THE TRAGEDY

Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi said he might need psychological help after what he witnessed in Angelo. "The scene was heartbreaking. I regretted why we had to go through that scene. It was heartbreaking. It is something that we need assistance personally. The bodies were scattered literally everywhere, you could see that people died running to save their lives." He blamed Zama Zamas for the deadly incident. "People were doing an illegal activity here, not in a secluded area but in the middle of where people stay. I don’t think that we should have encouraged that. That is why I am saying, the law enforcement, the people that are involved, we should have stopped that,” he said. The death toll has risen to 17 with more than ten people in hospital.