JOHANNESBURG - KwaZulu-Natal police have opened an inquest docket to investigate the church wall collapse in Empangeni that claimed the lives of 13 congregants.
The congregants were inside a building attending a Passover service on Thursday night when a side wall of the church collapsed.
The police said those who died were mostly young people, with the youngest person being 11 years old. A preliminary report by the local Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs cited the heavy rainfall could be the reason for the tragedy.“Yesterday [Thursday] just after 10pm, the congregants at Pentecostal Church at Empangeni were sleeping in the structure when there were heavy wind and rain, that’s when the building collapsed,” said KZN police spokesperson Colonel Thembeka Mbele.
#KZNchurch Congregants had been attending a Passover service when the wall came down last night. PICTURES: Supplied. pic.twitter.com/c2HebpTbiS“We have been praying for them, our sincere condolences to the families. As Christians, we pray for one another in bad and good times. Indeed those people of Empangeni are in our prayers,” said SACC provincial deputy chairperson Father Mlungisi Ntsele.“These are unnecessary deaths that could have been avoided if we had taken necessary precautions.
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