TRANSCRIPT
More than 70 people have died in a Johannesburg apartment building fire.
South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa.
"This is unprecedented. Johannesburg has never had an incident like this where so many people die as a result of a fire in the centre of the city. So this is tragic. This is very sad."
The blaze erupted at 1:19am local time in a rundown five story apartment block called Usindiso.
Floyd Brink is the Johannesburg City Manager.
"Tragically, we can now confirm that there's about 73 fatalities. Sixty-six of those are adults and seven children. Let me at this stage express our condolences to the families and the affected ones of the deceased and hasten to add that all efforts are being put in place to provide the families and all the affected with the relevant social and psychological support through the City's disaster management as well as the provincial social development department."
Tragically the death toll rose higher to 12 children, the youngest a one-year-old.
Their bodies were among dozens laid out on the street for hours, covered by blankets and carpets.
Paramedic Rapulane Monageng expects the number of dead to rise.
"We brought a canine from South African Police Services, that will come at a later stage when the building is cool. Then we'll use the canine now to do what we call a sort of body recovery. The canines, we thought they would have a good sort of smell, they'll assist us in locating the cadavers where they are, and we can actually, with the indication of saying where they are, explore, go and dig, go and open up, and try to retrieve the bodies at the point of the situation. That's how we will try to do all kinds of measures going forward."
At least 50 people were injured in the blaze.
Omar Arafat lived in the building with his family.
“Firstly I lost my sister. Three sisters I’ve already lost. I lost all my things, I didn’t bring anything from inside because at that time I was already (trying) to protect my life. And my sister left her small daughter, and my in-law hit the window and threw the daughter outside and the people (on the ground) caught the daughter while she was hot on the air.”
Kenny Bupe says many escape routes led to dead ends.
“The actual fire escape was closed so they…there was a lot of people you know, a lot of people, smoke…people suffocated, a lot of people died because of the smoke, because there was a lot of pressure at the gate, some of the gates were closed."
The building was owned by municipal authorities who, 12 hours after the blaze broke out, were still unable to provide a clear picture of how many were living there.
The municipality had leased the building to a charity for displaced women but it ended up being taken over by criminal gangs.
City Manager Brink describes the building as having been hijacked.
"This is a tragic event, an incident, and one that is unprecedented given the number of lives that has been lost in this incident. We will do our best to ensure that we act diligently in investigating the fire and equally in our pursuit to reclaim the hijacked and illegally occupied buildings in the city."
But President Ramaphosa says the building was occupied by vulnerable people being exploited by criminal gangs.
"We've got to go to the bottom of what caused this fire and also address from now on. It's a wake up call for us to begin to address the situation of housing in the inner city. The lesson for us is that we have got to address this problem, and root and everything else, root out those criminal elements because it is these types of buildings that are taken over by criminals who then levy rents on vulnerable people and families who need and want accommodation in this city, the inner city.”
