The strange weather the past two weeks caused havoc and, apart from the hail damage, eight cows died after being struck by lightning on Saturday (21st) morning.

The residents of Tshaulu village were busy with their morning chores, while others were preparing to go to either Sibasa or Thohoyandou for shopping, when a dark cloud appeared up in the sky just over the village at around 08:30. Soon afterwards, lightning and thunder shook the village.

“People came to inform me that my eight cows were lying dead under the mufula tree,” said a cattle owner, Vho-Sarah Kwinda (71). “When I reached the spot, I found my eight cows lying dead on the ground. I couldn't believe what my eyes were seeing.”

Kwinda explained that one of the eight cows had just given birth to a calf the day before, and that the other seven cows were also heavily pregnant. “It will not be wrong to say that I have lost 13 cows,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t believe that this thing has happened to my cows. They are all dead.”

Kwinda said that she had been practising subsistence cattle farming for the past 15 years. Some of her children were put through school using the money derived from this type of farming. “I am a widow who relies on cattle farming,” she said. “How am I going to take my grandchildren to school now that this evil lightning has killed my cows? Where will I get money to buy food?”

A herdman, Vho-Wilson Madoba (68), said that he was among the first people to get to the place where the lightning had struck the cows. “I found a day-old calf sucking on its dead mother’s teats,” he said.

A 62-year-old resident, Vho-Enoch Makungo, said that he had lived in Tshaulu for many years, but he had never seen an incident of this nature. “Hezwi ri hafha ro tshuwa! (We are all shocked!),” he said. “One cannot easily accept the consequences of the lightning as if it were something small. We have been praying for rain to wet our land, so that we can plough our fields and cultivate crops. We all want rain, but not the kind of rain that destroys our livestock.”