Johannesburg - Thandeka Mayekiso was sitting by a window facing the Synagogue Church of All Nations guest house as it came crumbling down on Friday.
“It was like pouring sugar on the side of a glass and you see the sugar coming down,” she said of the place accommodating hundreds of South Africans who had gone to see Nigerian prophet TB Joshua.
Soon after that, she saw the bricks start to dislodge.
“The whole thing took about five seconds or 10 seconds at most, but it felt like a million years,” she said.
As Mayekiso sat staring at the building as it started to collapse, the two South African men who were in the same room as her had their backs to the window and were unaware of what was happening.
“I heard (a sound) and I was like, ‘earthquake’, then we saw bricks coming and I froze. But then it was only when these guys jumped across me that (I realised) everything was starting,” she said.
Eventually, the building she was in, metres away from the guest house, was covered in dust, and a huge commotion began.
“I fell because I thought the wall was coming in, but it was a cloud of dust that looked like a wall that was literally coming (towards us). You think you’re holding on to somebody, but you’re holding on to a cloud of dust.”
Mayekiso said she fell and slid to the floor, and felt a stampede of people walking all over her.
“I got up and finally saw the door. From then onwards, the medical part just kicked in. I could walk – I lost my glasses and shoes and I was disoriented. I got up and started to help,” she said.
Mayekiso hasn’t been practising as a medical doctor for two years. She said maybe this was a sign that she should go back. The doctor had gone to Lagos on private business, but had also decided she would visit people who were at the guest house.
“And the worst thing, during 9/11, I was there in (Washington) DC… so for me it was like déjà vu. In my head I was like ‘NO’…
“For the life of me, I don’t know how I would feel if I saw a building coming towards me.”
Mayekiso said the working conditions at the collapsed building were difficult, and she did not know how many people were still under the rubble.
The SABC reported on Wednesday that the death toll in the building collapse stood at 70.
The Star
* The figures for dead and injured people in this disaster are still being collated. IOL will use the latest figures available to us, but please be aware that the numbers will fluctuate as the story is updated.