Six Mhangura men narrowly escaped death last Friday after hailstorm uprooted a huge tree before falling on a gazebo and a car trapping the driver and beer lovers.
Simbarashe Chirau from Sikona in Upper-Doma under Mhangura constituency is a lucky man who has failed to explain how he survived the recent incident which happened at Mhangura Bazaars shopping.
Chirau’s Nissan hardbody truck was extensively damaged.
The big tree also destroyed a gazebo in which some five imbibers were having a drinking spree before trapping one who was rescued more than 30 minutes later.
“I don’t even know how I survived the mishap. I survived the accident by the grace of God and while my vehicle is partly right off, I can’t seem to find how I escaped that life threatening incident,” he said.
Mr Chirau was seated in the front of his open truck vehicle when the incident happened but escaped with only a ripped T-shirt while some men who were having beer in the thatched gazebo sustained minor injuries.
“At first we thought the driver of the vehicle had died from the impact of the tree but miraculously, he came out of the vehicle some twenty minutes later. We had engaged police and ZESA officials to help with the incident,” said one witness Cosmas Musoya.
According to residents, the eucalyptus trees were planted in the 1970s and were now a threat to people particularly beer lovers and shoppers.
Meanwhile, two local farmers in the same area lost farming inputs and grains after hailstorm ripped off roofs of sheds and storerooms.
The hailstorm left a trail of destruction as it ripped off galvanised sheets off trusses, exposing 18 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, 12 tonnes of Compound D, and 20 tonnes of lime.
More than 20 tonnes of maize, wheat and other crops were also exposed to heavy rains that fell in the area and are expected to continue until Sunday.
In an interview, Victory Farm Plot 5 holder, Lieutenant Colonel Usher Cakana (Retired) said strong winds blew off the roof of his storerooms.
“The whole roof was blown away destroying some fertilisers, lime and grains,” he said. “The estimated cost of the damage of the inputs is about \300 000. I am still calculating the tonnes of grain that I lost.”
Former Zimbabwe Farmers Union first vice president, Mr Berean Mukwende, whose farm was also affected by the hailstorm, said more than 100 of his pigs were now living in the open after several pigsties were destroyed in the hailstorm.
At least 50 cases of destructions caused by the recent hailstorm were recorded by the provincial Civil Protection Unit.
Among the infrastructure include schools and homesteads.