Synagogue reluctant to release names of victims as death toll hits 80

Six days after a five-storey building used as guest house by the Synagogue Church of All Nations, SCOAN collapsed, killing scores of persons and injuring several others, the church was yet to produce names of  lodgers in the building. The collapse of a part of a multiple storey building inside the premises of the Synagogue Church of All Nations, SCOAN The collapse of a part of a multiple storey building inside the premises of the Synagogue Church of All Nations, SCOAN Although the South African government had Tuesday claimed that 67 of its citizens perished in the collapsed building but rescue operators are faced with the challenge of identifying the nationalities of the dead and survivors, owing to what they alleged as reluctance from SCOAN to produce the names. Besides, indication emerged that some countries, among which is Australia, have been calling in to ascertain the plight of their citizens feared might be victims. This is as the death toll rose to 80 yesterday with the recovery of additional 17 victims comprising 12 women and five men, with the  number of survivors still 131. Fielding questions from newsmen on the contradiction in the number of death between rescue operators and President Jacob Zuma of  South Africa, the South West spokesperson for the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA  Ibrahim Farinloye, maintained that as at Tuesday, when Zuma came up with his figure, the death toll was 63. Farinloye said, I don’t know where President Zuma got his information from. He is not on ground here but we are. So, we presume he is operating based on  information made available to him.

Vanguard Newspaper