PROPERTY worth thousands of dollars went up in smoke following a mysterious fire outbreak that destroyed an old classroom block at Liebenberg High School in Chivhu yesterday morning.
Report by Wonai Masvingise
The school was built by the first whites to cross the Limpopo from South Africa in the 1890s.
Munyaradzi Munemo, the school headmaster, told NewsDay the fire broke out before commencement of lessons, adding police forensic expert were still going through the debris for possible leads to the cause of the inferno.
He said the fire destroyed six classrooms, a laboratory and administration offices although there were no casualties.
“I was informed that some of our Form Three classes were on fire. This is a very old building, it was built in 1898,” Munemo said.
“There was no fire tender so there was very little that we could do. We had to remove furniture to minimise the damage. We also tried to douse the fire using water and sand and we were able to stop the fire from spreading to the next building.
“We had a desktop computer, a laptop and a printer that we managed to save from the SDA (School Development Association) office.
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“The safe was undamaged, but we cannot move it yet because police are still carrying out their investigations. We lost part of our documentation, some school uniforms and furniture. The building had not been renovated since 1898,” he said.
When the NewsDay crew arrived at the school in the afternoon, the roof had caved in.
Munemo said the most of the affected classrooms housed Form Four students. He, however, could not ascertain the exact value of the destroyed property as investigations were still in progress.
The school has an enrollment of over 1 000 students.
