Scores killed as fire guts run-down Johannesburg apartment block
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[August 31, 2023]
By Carien du Plessis, Bhargav Acharya
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -More than 70 people were killed overnight when
fire raged through a five-storey Johannesburg apartment block, one of
the worst such disasters in a city where poverty, household fires and
homelessness are widespread.
Gutted, blackened by soot and still smoldering on Thursday as emergency
services gathered around it and bodies lay covered in blankets on a
nearby street, the building stood in a rundown area.
It was owned by municipal authorities who, 12 hours after the blaze
broke out, were still unable to provide a clear picture of who had lived
there. One official said some rooms may have been rented out by criminal
gangs.
Leo, a 25-year-old who survived the blaze, had been living on the second
floor. He escaped along with his mother via the stairs.
"People were just running away. It was dark and there was smoke. You
couldn't see anything," he said.
At least one person jumped to their death, said Thando le Nkosi Manzini,
a student who saw the fire from the street. "I saw a guy jumping from
the fourth floor," he told Reuters.
The municipal government said at least 73 people had died and 43 been
injured in the blaze.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Aug/31/images/ads/current/goodman_sda_FAIR_2022.png)
Johannesburg officials initially suggested the building had been
occupied by squatters.
City Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda told reporters the municipality had leased it
to a charity for displaced women but that it had "ended up serving a
different purpose," without giving further details.
Lebogang Isaac Maile, the head of the Human Settlements department for
Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg, said some of those burned
to death may have been renting from criminal gangs illegally collecting
rent.
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![](../images/083123PIX/news_s10.jpg)
Firefighters work at the scene of a
deadly blaze in the early hours of the morning, in Johannesburg,
South Africa August 31, 2023. REUTERS/Shiraaz Mohamed
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Jul/22/images/ads/current/rohlfs_lda_072017.png)
"There are cartels who prey on who are vulnerable people. Because
some of these buildings, if not most of them, are actually in the
hands of those cartels who collect rental from the people," he told
reporters.
APARTHEID HERITAGE BUILDING
A sign on the entrance to the block identified it as a heritage
building from South Africa's apartheid past, where Black South
Africans came to collect their "dompass" - documents that would
enable them to work in white-owned areas of the city.
Johannesburg remains one of the world's most unequal cities with
widespread poverty, joblessness and a housing crisis. It has about
15,000 homeless people, according to the Gauteng government.
Household fires are common in Johannesburg, especially in poor
areas. One of the poorest townships, Alexandra, has seen hundreds of
homes razed in several fires over the past five years.
The city suffers from chronic power shortages during which many
resort to candles for light and wood fires for heat.
Authorities said the cause of the fire was still under
investigation.
Maile said it "demonstrates a chronic problem of housing in our
province, as we've previously said that there's at least 1.2 million
people who need housing."
(Reporting by Carien du Plessis, Shafiek Tassiem, Bhargav Acharya
and Alexander Winning in Johannesburg, Additional reporting by
Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; Writing and editing by Tim Cocks and
John Stonestreet;)
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