Struck by Fate: Mhangura Man’s Mysterious Death Sparks Talk of Supernatural Forces

Struck by Fate: Mhangura Man’s Mysterious Death Sparks Talk of Supernatural Forces

Lightning defies nature’s rules, killing man at ground level amid love disputes and whispers of vengeance from beyond

By Herbert Leeroy Dube

Mhangura — A strange calm had blanketed the dusty mining town when fate struck with the fury of the heavens. The air was still, save for a soft, teasing breeze that whispered through the withering trees. A handful of clouds gathered lazily in the September sky — a month when rain is more myth than miracle. Then came a few timid drops, followed by a thunderclap so loud it seemed to tear through the fabric of the afternoon.

In that split second, tragedy descended.

A 38-year-old man, whose name villagers are withholding out of respect, was struck by lightning while stacking bricks on a traditional oven. Witnesses say the bolt tore through the sky like a silver spear and struck him in the most unimaginable of places — right in the groin. He fell forward, face-first onto the smouldering oven, dying instantly.

The heavens had spoken, it seemed, but no one could understand what message they had carried.

What stunned the community even more was that the victim had been working on the ground — while another young man who stood atop the oven, a far more likely target according to nature’s laws, escaped without a single scratch. The villagers whispered in awe and disbelief: how could lightning defy its own rule and seek him out so precisely?

The brief shower that had begun moments before the tragedy ended just as abruptly. The clouds scattered. The wind died. And with them went all sense of normalcy in Mhangura.

But what made the event even more spine-chilling were the revelations that followed. Only a week earlier, the deceased had been entangled in a bitter phone altercation with an 84-year-old man from Mberengwa — the legally married husband of the woman he was now living with. The elderly man had been left to care for a six-year-old physically challenged girl, abandoned by the very woman who now basked in love’s new embrace.

Neighbors say the old man had been tormented by his loneliness and the cruel burden of raising a child alone. To add salt to the wound, DNA tests had confirmed that the two children he fathered with the woman were indeed his. Yet, she had chosen another man — the now-deceased.

And as if that storm wasn’t enough, whispers spread that the man had also been embroiled in another domestic battle — this time with a neighbor accused of snatching his wife. Words were exchanged, tempers flared, and threats hung heavy in the air like dark clouds before a storm.

In African tradition, lightning is not always seen as nature’s whim. Some believe it can be sent — a weapon wielded by those with dark spiritual powers, guided by anger or vengeance. And so, as villagers gathered under a pale moonlight to mourn, their voices trembled with superstition:

Was this death by chance, or was it crafted by unseen hands?

Could it be the work of the aggrieved old man from Mberengwa, his heart heavy with betrayal and sorrow? Or was it perhaps the other rival, the one whose wife had been taken?

Or had fate itself turned cruel, delivering justice from the skies in a way that only nature — or something beyond — could explain?

Today, the people of Mhangura tread softly when thunder rumbles. They speak his name in hushed tones and glance skyward with wary eyes. For in their hearts, they are haunted by the chilling mystery of the man who was struck in the most sacred place — and by questions that still echo after the lightning’s roar faded:

Was it the wrath of God, the revenge of man, or the dark work of spirits unseen?

No one knows. But the oven on which he fell still stands, blackened and silent — a grim monument to a death that defied both reason and the rules of lightning.