Durban - Chesterville township, west of Durban, is home to Heroes Acre Memorial Park, situated in the cemetery.
Situated on Mahlathi Road, it is the resting place of Struggle heroes including Nat Nakasa and Eric “Stalin” Mtshali, and icons including slain Bafana Bafana and Pirates goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa.
Residents say their dignity is
being impaired by an overflowing manhole just across the road, with the sewerage running into a small stream in the property of the Chesterville Catholic Parish.
Just weeks before, another manhole inside the cemetery overflowed on to the road, and there are two more
overflowing manholes inside the church’s property.
Further down the road are three more overflowing manholes due to blocked sewer lines.
According to the area councillor Sfiso Mngadi, the township’s Road 7 was also in a similar state.
“I got in contact with the head of water and sanitation. The pipes are always bursting and causing overflows in Road 7. The pipes are all old. Chesterville is an old township and the old pipes need to be changed,” he said.
Mngadi said an official had
come out to the township and went
to all the problematic manholes.
“The municipality is aware of the problem,” he said.
A resident, Joyce Buhlalo, said they had been living with the stench for three weeks.
“We have a number of reference numbers, but nothing is being done about this unhygienic state of our township,” she said.
The parish, which also houses a school, had been trying to get assistance from the city with the sewer lines for months as it was hindering construction of a new church building.
A site foreman at the church, Malcom Cowling, said they started work on the site two months ago, doing the foundation for the new church.
He said they dug 5m deep when laying the foundation, and encountered seepage from the sewer lines even at that depth.
He said the church had been battling with sewage for months.
“The water was running into the school property, the cars were driving through it on the road, the children were walking on it.
“Congregation members dug a trench to redirect the overflow into a nearby stream,” he said.