Synagogue Tragedy: South Africa sends plane to fly back injured nationals,another survivor recounts ordeal

The South African government has said it would send an aircraft to Lagos to evacuate survivors of the collapsed building at the Synagogue Church for All Nations, South African Sunday Independent reports. Eighty-six South Africans reportedly lost their lives in the tragedy. South African officials were quoted as saying on Saturday that the aircraft to fetch the survivors would arrive in Nigeria on Sunday. The officials also said that the corpses of the dead victims would remain in Nigeria for identification by forensic experts. They added that the plane, which will carry medical personnel, would remain briefly on the ground in Lagos to load the injured South Africans before returning home. It is believed that at least 30 South Africans are in hospitals in the Lagos. “They are apparently under guard by security employed by SCOAN,” the South African paper said. South Africa has however mobilised a massive effort to deal with the aftermath of the tragedy. Apart from sending in forensic experts to deal with the bodies, government has also sent in doctors to treat the injured and counsellors to help the injured and their families. Social workers are also at OR Tambo to support families waiting for injured relatives. South Africa’s intervention comes more than a week after the fatal event that has claimed 84 South African lives. At the time a total of 349 South Africans were in Lagos on matters connected to the church when the building collapsed. Meanwhile,a South African survivor has opened up on how she survived. Lying in the rubble of the guesthouse, only able to tell if it was night or day through a tiny crack, Lindiwe Ndwandwe heard the screams of others beneath the debris slowly turn silent. For five days the 33-year-old was trapped inside a toilet next to the dining hall of the collapsed Synagogue Church of All Nations, breathing only through a small hole in the wreckage. In the end, she was forced to drink her own urine to survive. “It’s like a dream to me that really, it’s me that came out from here,” the South African told AFP on Saturday as she surveyed the remains of the church in the Nigerian city of Lagos. “I don’t believe it. The tears that I cry, it’s because I don’t believe.”