Durban family pleads for mom's return from quake-hit Myanmar
A Durban woman says she and her family have been desperately trying to get help for her 51-year-old mother who is stuck in a tent settlement in Mandalay in earthquake-hit Myanmar.
Devika Hunsraj has been in the southeast Asian country for almost a year teaching English.
Thiasha Narainsamy of Mount Edgecombe says her mother miraculously survived last month's 7.7 magnitude quake after falling from the 11th floor of her collapsed apartment building.
"Her entire building was completely shattered. There were only three people who survived, and she was one of them. All of her belongings were completely lost in all of the rubble.
"By some miracle she had managed to crawl out of the rubble because she had fallen from quite a way up. It had crumbled down and she managed to get out. But everybody else beneath them died, unfortunately."
READ: Downpours drench homeless survivors of Myanmar quake
Narainsamy says efforts to contact consular officials to get her mother emergency travel documents to enable her to come back to South Africa have been slow and stressful.
"Her passport was completely lost during all of this. She has no form of documentation. You know, the embassy is supposed to be working extra hard to produce those emergency exit documents. It's taken this long to sort out. There's been very little effort to try and get them out as soon as possible. It's taken too long."
There has been no response to a query sent to the Department of International Relations.
At least one South African has been confirmed to have died in the earthquake.
The department earlier said 11 others have been accounted for in Myanmar in the aftermath.
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