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Tinomuda Chakanyuka Sunday News Reporter—
ABOUT 57 percent of elevators in buildings around the country that have been inspected by the National Social Security Authority (NSSA) are not working, amid growing fear by members of the public in using elevators to go up high-rise buildings. The fear has been heightened by a number of elevator mishaps that have occurred recently, some of which have claimed lives and injured people while others have left people trapped for hours.
Last weekend two people, a technician from Schindler Lifts and an NRZ female employee he was trying to rescue from a faulty elevator, died after they plunged down the elevator shaft, from the eighth floor of the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) headquarters in Bulawayo.
The accident came just a few months after an elevator technician died and three others were injured after an elevator at Chaminuka Building in Harare broke loose and plunged from the ninth to the fourth floor.
NSSA, which is mandated with assessing the safety of elevators, last week said only 193 out of 453 elevators inspected this year were found to be working while the rest were grounded for various reasons.
Officials from NSSA were, however, not in a position to immediately provide a list of buildings with functioning elevators and those whose elevators were not working.
Inspections of elevators are carried out once every year, while owners of buildings are required to service elevators once every week for selected components and once every month for the entire plant.
NSSA corporate communications manager Mr Philemon Chereni said all the 193 elevators that were found to be functioning were safe for use and urged members of the public not to fret.
“453 elevators were inspected and 193 were found to be working. The rest are not in use due to the owners’ failure to replace them with new ones. All the buildings with running lifts are safe for use. The ones with non-running ones have stopped due to a normal breakdown or owner’s desire.
“Elevators remain safe. All equipment made by man is not 100 percent failure-proof. The elevators are serviced and inspected as stipulated above. And if proper procedures as stipulated in laws and standards are followed, elevators are safe to use,” he said.
Mr Chereni said owners of buildings must comply with the relevant elevator standards legislation to avoid mishaps.
He urged members of the public not to panic when trapped in elevators, but remain patient until they get assistance from skilled and competent technicians.
“The law is clear on what needs to be done regarding maintenance and use of elevators.
“Members of the public should not panic when they are trapped in an elevator. They should press the alarm button or call the service providers and remain calm until they are rescued by a competent technician. Members of the public should not vandalise elevators.
“The owner and competent persons should comply with the safety legislations when they are using, working on elevators, or rescuing people trapped in elevators,” he said.
The two people who died in the NRZ elevator accident, Mrs Elizabeth Mlangeni (NRZ employee) and Mr Kevin Musina, were buried on Wednesday last week at West Park Cemetery.
Accurate details of how the mishap occurred were not available by the time of going to print, as investigations were said to be under way.
NRZ spokesperson Mr Fanuel Masikati said: “Investigations are still in progress and we will make the findings public once we are done. There are a lot of bodies that are carrying out investigations and we would want to allow them to conclude their work before we can comment.
“As NRZ we would like to express our profound condolences to the family of our employee and the rest of our employees on the sad loss of their relative and workmate.”
The railway company has since suspended use of elevators at its headquarters, the third tallest building in the country with 23 floors.
NSSA could not commit on revealing its findings so far on the mishap.
Speculation is that the mishap occurred after Mrs Mlangeni got trapped inside the elevator on the eight floor on Friday 3 July around 4pm as she was going to the ground floor after knocking off from work.
The technician, Mr Musina, who was sent to attend to the fault is suspected to have tried to rescue Mrs Mlangeni through the trap door of the elevator car but was overpowered by the latter who was of a heavy built, resulting in the two plunging to the basement, down the shaft.
Their bodies were only discovered 24 hours later by another technician from Schindler who was making a follow-up on Musina.
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