GalleryMall calamityTHE Tongaat mall that collapsed yesterday — trapping some 50 workers in a major tragedy — is linked to a high-flying and controversial family already under fire in an official report for their companies’ “shoddy” building standards. The mall, which is still being built, collapsed at around 4 pm yesterday. A three-storey section of the half-built Tongaat mall — the size of half a soccer field — pancaked while supports were being removed, according to eye witnesses. READ FULL STORY
Rescue teams pitch in round-the-clockSEARCH and rescue teams from the police and paramedics worked non-stop until yesterday morning searching for people trapped under the concrete rubble of the collapsed Tongaat mall.
About 100 rescue personnel both from the police and paramedics, including a team of four lecturers from the Durban University of Technology (DUT), were involved in the search. READ THE FULL STORY Builder gets millions moreDURBAN’S city manager has confirmed a R100 million extra payment for the Tongaat mall developer, saying his hands were tied.
This despite official reports of “shoddy” workmanship on housing developments and a public outcry. READ MORE Rules in place to manage work sitesCONSTRUCTION can be a dangerous activity, especially where working at heights is concerned. READ MORE
Tongaat Mall: site visit for insight into collapse
A TEAM of engineers representing opposing parties in what has become the province’s biggest construction disaster, agreed on how best to extract evidence from the dangerous collapsed Tongaat Mall site. READ MORE Teen working part-time among the injuredAN 18-year-old schoolboy, working at the construction site to earn money in the afternoons, was one of the injured rushed to Umhlanga Hospital. READ MORE
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VIDEOSVolunteer’s shining deedMARK Basson had to burrow through mangled steel and gingerly dig down in the sand to retrieve the woman who died in the Tongaat mall disaster.
An unpaid volunteer rescue expert, Basson was yesterday hailed as a hero by colleagues after an all-night effort in which he “probably worked the [power tools] more than anyone”, while also hunting for buried survivors and recovering the only body found. READ MORE ABOUT HIM MORE NEwS ABOUT the mALl
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The unsung Heroes
THESE ARE THE MEN WHO MUST ANSWER HOW THE DISASTER OCCURED
Daniel "Jay" Singh
The Witness established that the mall is connected to controversial businessman Daniel “Jay” Singh and Rectangle Property Investments in which his son, the high living Ravi Jagadasan, is the remaining sole director. The Witness revealed that two of Singh’s housing developments were slated in a recent city investigation, the Manase Report, for “shoddy” building standards and how the family had scored over R500 million in city contracts. Singh’s world of worries escalatesJAY Singh — who has been facing mounting pressure since a mall in Tongaat he was building collapsed last year — has battles on at least two more fronts. In Phoenix, residents living in flats built and owned by Singh are challenging his right to the ownership of the properties in the Durban High Court, while in Newlands West, another block of flats semi-completed by Singh, is being inhabited by illegal squatters. READ MORE
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Ravi Jagadasan
Ravi Jagadasan is the remaining director of Rectangle Property Investments. FALL OF THE SINGH EMPIRE... CLICK HEREMORE ABOUT SINGH IN THE WITNESS...
Singh’s R3,5 bln deals... Click HEREJAY Singh has had six children with his own former step-daughter — and got a kidney from his son. |
WHERE the disaster took place
View Tongaat Mall in a larger map
As of Saturday, November 23, 2013 the number of people killed raised to (2).
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