Tenants flee blazing building
Shocked people lose everything in early morning blaze
A family of four and their two tenants were forced to flee with just the clothes on their backs as a fire raged through their flat in Southernwood yesterday morning.
The blaze gutted the top floor of Harlequin Court in Gately Street, sending dozens of people fleeing.
Tenants watched anxiously from the street as firefighters battled the blaze.
Buffalo City Metro fire chief Thembile Thompson said the building had been damaged by two fires. “When my team arrived back at the station at 8.26am from extinguishing the first blaze, another call came in from the same building after another fire broke out.”
Thompson said while the second fire appeared to have been caused by faulty wiring, he could not confirm the cause of the first fire.
The building is managed by Melville Properties. They said they would respond to questions once they had assessed the damage. The building has nine units and shares a fence with Life St Dominic’s Hospital.
Terrified nurses at the hospital called the Buffalo City Metro fire department at 6.35am, said BCM spokesman Samkelo Ngwenya.
Ghanian business studies teacher Frank Ofori, 46, his young family, and tenants Sinethemba Mbasa, 27, and Zibele Maqeda, 25, lost everything they owned to the fire.
Mbasa, a material handler at Mercedes-Benz, said he thought the fire may have started in the room he shared with Maqeda.
He said he had just returned, at 6.25am, from a 12-hour shift at the West Bank plant and had plugged in his cellphone to charge, while Maqeda was in the kitchen.
“I then went to the shower. Five minutes later I entered the room and saw my bed in flames.”
He switched off the power at the meter and they both returned to the room to try and put out the flames.
Ofori said: “I took one look at the flames and advised everyone to run. I grabbed both my daughters and told my wife to leave immediately, along with the tenants.”
Ofori said the fire spread through the ceiling of the top floor and damaged three other flats.
Maqeda, an accounts analyst at a King William’s Town bank, could not report for duty yesterday.
“My suit was laid out on the bed in the room where the fire started. I called work and told them about what happened.”