Imtiaz Sooliman – Sooliman on relief efforts in Jagersfontein
AI: Summary ©
A spokesperson from a news network discusses the progress made in relief efforts in Yahoo, including the arrival of trucks and supplies for people in need. The spokesperson also talks about the ongoing loss of animals and the potential consequences of the toxic water from a dam. The spokesperson concludes by thanking the people involved in relief efforts.
AI: Summary ©
You're listening to the President's response to residents
in Yahoo sundae in the Free State, where they have been speaking to
him about concerns around a mining area there where a dam collapsed
yesterday. So far, we know that at least two people are confirmed to
have died, dozens more still in hospital, homes and other
infrastructure also damaged. Eskom pardon was telling us yesterday
that power lines were affected. In fact, the President also
acknowledged the president of the local mayor. And speaking of the
local mayor, there's a post that you may or may not have seen, in
fact, online that's been shared that he made in February of last
year, 2021 where he said this, I'll read just a bit of it. He
said, 10 years ago, the mining company came to yakufundayne with
no water plan for its operation, because at the back of its mind,
it had concluded that for its operation it would bribe
politicians. That's an allegation that he made in the post on
Facebook last year. He said, about a few meters away from this non
compliant dam are houses of the masses of our people who are
automatically subjected to dangerous conditions. And that's a
post that's now been shared widely on social media, people saying
that there were warnings more than a year ago that that dam posed a
danger, a risk to the local community. Yacha sentene
development, which is the company that owns that operation, has said
that it does not believe that there's any hazard posed by the
wastewater that's been flowing as a result of that burst will get
more from that company, hopefully within the hour. But someone else
is joining us now to talk more about relief efforts in Yahoo
spontane as Dr India Suleiman, the founder of the gift of the givers
organization, doctor, we spoke to you 24 hours ago as you were
mobilizing your troops, so to speak, in order to respond to this
disaster. How much progress have you made?
Good afternoon, we've made excellent progress to mckelet. Our
trucks have arrived from Bethlehem, from Eastern East
London, and from Johannesburg. The truck from kitty matters on its
way. The solutions have already taken place in areas. We've
surveyed the area. We've seen the difficulty. We've seen the
hardships. We've already set up motion to get other supplies into
place from other parts of the province. Let me explain it a
little better. The primary need was bottled water, which we
brought immediately. And in fact, my teams walked across the sludge
to people who were caught up in charlesville, who couldn't get
out, who didn't move out, who couldn't get out, who couldn't
move out, both types of people because they wanted to stay in the
area. As we walked to them, they took the bottled water and started
drinking immediately. They've been thirsty since yesterday morning.
They also made arrangements to give out we gave out food. We gave
out blankets, and we even gave out,
I'm sorry, food items in bunk for people in the area itself. And
then, of course, the community hall and the church where people
have gathered. We're giving them supplies in bulk, again, bottled
water, mattresses, blankets and food items to cook. Whilst we were
doing that discussion, you know, we realized that a lot of sheep
had died. They were washed away, and those that survived drank from
the toxic liquid, and many of them got ill, they urgently need
antibiotics and a special milk for the lamb. The ewes are dead, the
lambs are now left without milk. So special ingredients, special
milk is required for the lambs and antibiotics to help them from a
lung infection. We've procured that, and we're expecting that
tomorrow morning, which will then be made available to the farms
association to have the lamb. That's crucial, isn't it, doctor,
because one of the community members is, in fact, a
subsistence farmer, and she was saying that is one of the main
concerns. If this is not addressed quickly, they may possibly be a
longer term ripple effect for the community, ie via employment or
even what's available to eat? Yes, that's very, very true. A large
number of the animals have been washed away, and of course, a
large number of them have been affected by the toxicity. So
whatever we can save, we need to do that. It's a long term, right?
It's about jobs saving jobs saving food security and making sure that
the farmers don't disappear altogether, or this massive job
losses. I mean, there's animal losses in one of the incidents we
heard, and
was very, very sad, we had put all his sheep together. It was the
good auction sometime this week, and the entire flock of sheep that
was supposed to adoption, all of the sheep were washed away. He now
has nothing to sell on auction, and that has affected farmers in a
large way, economically, and it's a recurring problem, like for the
drought in other parts of the country, there's so many farmers
have lost sheep. We can't afford to lose what's living, and we have
to do everything possible to save them, and in that, we save the
jobs and the livelihood of people. One last question. Then you have
given comment I was looking this morning where you were concerned
about a hazard posed by the wastewater flowing from that dam.
The company that runs the area says that it's convinced that
there's no danger posed by that. Am I right to say that you are in
possession of a different set of facts? Yes, no, I don't agree
with.
That this is toxic material inside the gap that the people on site
have said that the sheep have died drinking this, the toxic water.
And more than that, which hasn't been nearly mentioned a lot, the
fish have died in the river. They know the toxic product, once it
went into the river, the fish have started dying and started
surfacing. Now, in a normal flood, that doesn't happen. You know,
normal rain, they survive in situation. So there's obviously
some type of potent pollutants inside that water is causing the
fish to die. Some people have gone even further and said that if that
river reaches other dams in the area further down that, that water
in those dams will become polluted, and people in those
areas are gonna have a problem for drinking water. So I can't see how
the mining company or ever spokesman said that it's not
toxic. It's incredible to make a statement like that. Dr, MJ
Suleman, thank you, as always, for the work that you doing for
communities such as the people of yachts and day.