Synagogue building collapse: How South African survived by drinking her urine

One of South Africans, Lindiwe Ndwandwe, that survived the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) tragedy, has recounted her five-day ordeal, revealing how she survived on her urine.

She narrated her experience thus:

“I was about to eat when I decided to visit the restroom. When I was there, I heard this noise and then the ceiling of the toilet came crumbling down.

“I was trapped in the toilet for five days. I was hungry and thirsty throughout my stay there. I couldn’t even move, so I was just lying down because there.
“I heard people praying but I was alone in that place. I tried to sleep but it was difficult. It was through a hole that I knew whether it was day or night.

“On the third day, I knew they were rescuing people because I stopped hearing the voices of my neighbours.”
“Remember I was about to eat when I decided to visit the rest room. Whenever I am hungry, I will start having a conversation with God. Anytime I was hungry or thirsty and I told God, I will just fall asleep. On the fourth day, I was becoming weaker.

“And I was more thirsty. It then occurred to me that the only thing to do was to drink my urine. But I couldn’t even do that because I was lying on my side and the ceiling was hanging over me.
“So I removed my vest from my neck, put it round my legs and urinated on it. The same urine-soaked vest was what I sucked anytime I got thirsty.”

On how she was rescued, she said she heard two men arguing on whether to dig where she was or not and when they did, she came out alive with a few bruises on her arms.
“When I was rescued and I called my husband, the only thing he could say was thank God. I could hear the loud shouts of my family rejoicing in the background”, she further disclosed.