Johannesburg - Twenty-two children were injured when four classrooms collapsed during a severe storm on Thursday at the Mrwabo Junior Secondary School outside Matatiele, near Mthatha in the Eastern Cape.
School principal Mninikhaya Siphika said that of the 22 injured, only one child had a serious injury, which was a broken arm.
School staff said the roofs of the buildings were blown off and the mud structures then collapsed on top of the children, the SABC reported.
“There are no classrooms and we are supposed to write the final exams on Monday.”
Siphika said only seven children were still in hospital when he last phoned the Taylor Bequest hospital in Matatiele. The remaining children were recovering at home.
The storm started at 11am and lasted for about 20 minutes, in which time it destroyed four of the school's 10 classrooms.
“We are not teaching now, we don't have classrooms... The church was also taken by the thunderstorm, so we can't even teach there.”
He said he was relieved that of the 155 students so few were injured, and that there were no very serious injuries. - Sapa