The municipality of Musina was dealt a major blow when a devastating storm destroyed several houses that left many people homeless.

It hardly rains in Musina, one of the hottest areas in the country, and usually when it comes, the entire community celebrates. But this was not the case on Easter Monday, at around 19:30, when the much-awaited rain came in a thunderstorm.

The storm, which also broke down electric poles and trees, left the most of Nancefield and some parts of the town with no electricity from Monday evening until Tuesday afternoon. At the time of going to press, it was not clear how many houses had been destroyed. Cllr Evelyn Shirilele, the councillor for housing, said that most of the houses that were affected were RDP houses. Shirilele, who was part of the delegation from the municipality headed by mayor Caroline Mahasela, which was inspecting the damage on Tuesday, said they were still going to confirm the exact number of the houses affected.

The Musina Community Hall, which was completed at a cost of R5,6 million last November, was also destroyed before it could be officially opened.

Mahasela confirmed on Tuesday morning that “we do not have the budget to fix the damages.” She added that they would communicate with the Vhembe District Municipality as they were the ones responsible for disaster issues. “If our district cannot help us, we will go to the provincial level. On our own, we cannot solve this problem as we also have our own challenge of a low cash-flow,” said Mahasela. Meanwhile, Disaster Manager Gabriel Ramushwana added that the storm "usually strikes our area every year between December 23 and 31, but this one surprised us as it came three months later than it usually does.”

Businessman Rembuluwani Raedani said he was losing a lot of money because of the electricity interruption. “When this storm came, we were busy baking thousands of loaves of bread and they were wasted since the electricity never came back. My main worry is that frozen foods are also getting rotten as this area is too hot. My prayer now is that the electricity will come back soon.”