Daily Sun (September 23 2014) - TEARS of relief flowed as friends and families watched survivors come off the plane at Air Force Base Swartkop.
But in Durban, KZN there were tears of grief for the Ngcobo family.
DR DICKIE NGCOBO, A NEUROPATH, AND HER HUSBAND THUTHUKANI DIED IN THE RUBBLE THAT WAS TB JOSHUA'S GUESTHOUSE.
Mduduzi Mabaso, spokesman for the Ngcobo family, said Dickie and Thuthukani left for Nigeria on 9 September to visit the church for the first time.
Mabaso said they had spoken every day.
"They were very excited. They kept sharing the scriptures with us and spoke of the beauty of the church. Thuthukani kept saying it was like being in heaven."
"I last spoke to them on the morning of 12 September, just before the accident. We saw the news and then we couldn't get hold of them. It was terrible," he said.
"We kept on praying for their safe return until we got confirmation of their deaths."
The deaths of the two were confirmed by a church delegation which came from Lagos to deliver the bad news.
The couple's pastor, Lazarus Mahlangu of the Kingdom Embassy International Church, said they were senior leaders in the church.
"They were very helpful and active," he said.
"We will be holding prayers at their home to help the family." Dr Dickie ran Ukuphila Wellness centre which has branches throughout the country.
Twenty-five injured victims who had gone to attend prophet Joshua's Synagogue Church of All Nations arrived at the airbase in Tshwane aboard a C130 Hercules air-
ambulance aircraft.
Of the injured, three are children, two of whom have been orphaned by the disaster. They will now be cared for by the Social Services department.
One of the injured did not come back to the country, deciding to return to the church instead.
Three of the victims have had limbs amputated. Another developed gangrene and will lose toes to amputation, others have fractures, and one suffered kidney failure and is on dialysis.
Pretoria's streets came to a standstill as the convoy of ambulances carrying the injured moved through the city.
Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe said at a media briefing that 84 South Africans were among the 115 now confirmed dead.
"The most difficult part for our assessment team now is to start repatriating the 84 deceased," Radebe said.
"As far as we're concerned, we've identified all South Africans - those who died and those who were injured."
TB Joshua will apparently come to Mzansi soon to visit the families of South Africans who died and to see the survivors.
) Outside the Emergency entrance to Steve Biko Academic Hospital, loved ones sat anxiously waiting for their five minutes of contact time with injured family members.
Addressing the group, deputy social services minister Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu warned loved ones, in what seemed to be a veiled reference to the Ebola epidemic. "With the current situation in West Africa, all the injured are under 48-hour lock down".
According to the hospital's deputy chief executive officer, Dr Mathabo Mathebula, the Lagos patients needed to remain in semi-quarantine for 48 hours to avoid the possibility of the spread of any diseases they may have unknowingly contracted. However, she stressed that "it is just an additional precautionary measure".
Meanwhile, social workers have been assigned to every family, while those from outside Gauteng will be put up in a Tshwane hotel for 48 hours.
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