The Sol Plaatje Municipality claims that the deaths of five workers at the Homevale Waste Water Treatment Plant in 2012 were a freak accident and municipal officials could not be held responsible.
One of the general workers at the Homevale plant yesterday relived the tragedy, when he witnessed three of his colleagues falling to their deaths and being engulfed in rising sewage sludge inside a pump station.
Testifying during the inquest into the deaths of five Sol Plaatje municipal workers in the Kimberley Magistrate’s Court, Thurlow Naidu indicated that there had been several attempts to drain the overflowing sewage on the day of the incident.
He said that his father, Trevor Naidu, had advised one of the deceased, Joey Reid, and himself that he would accept responsibility if the malfunctioning electrical pump burnt out as it was submerged in sewage.
“My father is the controller with 20 years of experience at the plant. Reid went down into the pump house to try and unblock one of the pumps. Due to the pressure, sewage squirted out of one of the valves and it spilled onto Reid.”
Naidu stated that Reid attempted to clear the pump without entering the pump station, while they also tried to drain the liquid by means of an extractor pump from the steel platform.
“I witnessed how the pressure did not subside and the sludge continued to leak after Reid had closed the valve. If the valve was functioning properly it should not have leaked.”
He refuted claims that Reid had turned the valve in the wrong direction.
Naidu said that Raymond Numan, who also died in the accident, refused to go into the pump house on the day of the tragedy.
He explained that no safety representative had been appointed while the pump station was also not equipped with a rescue boat on the day of the incident. “All four pumps were switched off and the sludge inside the pump station had risen to about two metres.”
He pointed out that the untreated sewage had, on previous occasions, flooded the pump station although the cause had not been established.
“There were two people who contracted tuberculosis after being exposed to the sludge.”
Naidu also told the court that about 10 minutes passed after they heard the screams from the pump house before an ambulance was called. “Everyone was panicking while we ran to assist those trapped inside the pump house.”
Advocate Ferdi van Heerden, who is representing the Sol Plaatje Municipality, maintained that there had been no incidents prior to the deaths of the workers.
“This was an out of the ordinary incident.”
Advocate Sakkie Nel, representing Garret Corns, the senior controller at the plant, stated that his client was not at the facility at the time of the incident.
The legal representative for Naidu, Riaan Bode, confirmed that, according to his client, members of the Kimberley Fire Brigade, who attended to the scene, had to wear protective clothing and masks in order to retrieve the bodies of the workers from the sludge.
The inquest will continue until Friday.
Diamond Fields Advertiser