Zimpapers Logo

John Murwira in Karoi
A 22-year-old woman who lived at a farm here was on Tuesday electrocuted by a laundry line which became live following an illegal electricity connection. Mashonaland West police spokesperson Inspector Clemence Mabgweazara said Juliet Honzeri of Marshlands Farm compound was electrocuted while removing clothes from the laundry line. When the woman was electrocuted, Insp Mabgweazara said, she called on her husband for help.

“When her husband tried to remove her from the line, he received electric shocks and sought assistance from fellow villagers, but they found the woman dead,” he said.

A report was made at Karoi Rural Police after the incident. A team from the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission Distribution Company (ZETDC) was called to the scene and discovered that there was an illegal electricity connection.

“They noticed that there was an illegal connection of electricity on a number of houses at the compound. The house’s corrugated iron sheet roof was electrified and the washing line was joined to the electrified roofing,” he said.

Insp Mabgweazara said the farm owner saw the illegal connections last year and ordered his employees to switch off the breaker, but people continued tampering with the breaker through an opening.

The deceased body was taken to Karoi District Hospital for post-mortem. Meanwhile, a Chinhoyi man is battling for life at Parirenyatwa Hospital after he was seriously burnt by oil while vandalising a transformer at Chinhoyi University of Technology.

On January 13 this year, Claud Bwana and his accomplice Maxwell Mandizha tried to drain oil from a transformer and this resulted in an explosion.