Hillbrow building goes up in flames
Investigations continue into the cause of a fire which claimed the lives of seven.
Investigations are continuing into the cause of a horrific fire which claimed the lives of seven people at an allegedly illegally occupied block of flats in Johannesburg yesterday.
The fire at the flats in Nugget Street in Hillbrow resulted in seven other people being taken to hospital for a range of injuries and smoke inhalation.
With firefighters battling the unrelenting blaze yesterday morning, Johannesburg Emergency Services spokesperson Nana Radebe said one person eventually jumped to his death, trying to escape the flames.
She said another six people were found dead on the second floor of the building.
Hanging from the widows of the Cape York building were makeshift ropes made with bedsheets that people tried using to escape from the various floors on which they were situated.
“Our preliminary investigations were concluded but there was no determination on how the fire started,” Radebe said.
The South African Police Service will now conduct its own investigation into what sparked the blaze.
According to reports, the building had been illegally occupied, which police spokesperson Lieutenant Kay Makhubela said would be dealt with.
This put hijacked or illegally occupied structures in the spot- light at a time that Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba said the city was facing a major housing backlog.
The backlog is estimated at 300 000 units, with an average of just 3 500 housing units being built per year.
“As such, we have limited space to move our people out of these buildings,” Mashaba said after visiting the building that caught fire.
Making matters worse, he added, were slumlords extorting huge sums of money after people turned to them for shelter, “even under the most horrible of living conditions”.
Mashaba would work with emergency services to get all hijacked buildings declared unsafe and unsanitary.
“Raids of these buildings will also be increased,” he said.
Makhubela could not immediately say how many people occupied the building, which had been raided prior to the fire.
“We don’t know how many people are foreign nationals and how many people South Africans.
“There is no head count as yet,” he said.
He warned that although arrests were not conducted on site, if people were found illegally occupying buildings or were foreigners living in SA illegally, they would be arrested.
The building, which has been declared a crime scene, has been sealed until investigations are complete.