Mother and twins die in home blaze
Dad tells of desperate efforts to save his family
THE blood-curdling screams of a young Uitenhage mother and her four-year-old twins – trapped in a raging fire – will forever haunt those who tried desperately to save them as the ferocious blaze devoured their home yesterday.
Vuyokazi Klaas’s long-time partner and neighbours frantically tried to reach her and the little boys inside their KwaLanga shack but the flames were relentless.
Klaas, 35, and twins Abongile and Bonginkosi died in the four-roomed shack they were renting in the backyard of a property.
The family had been asleep when the fire – the cause of which is not yet known – started shortly before 5am.
The tragedy occurred just two days before Klaas’s 36th birthday.
Her devastated boyfriend and father of the twins, Andre “Eddie” Hlongwane, 42, who escaped the blaze wearing only his underwear, described the horror of his and their neighbours’ frenzied efforts to save his family.
Speaking hours after the deadly fire swept through their home, Hlongwane told how it had started in the twins’ bedroom, with Klaas rushing to rescue them while he tried to open the only exit from the shack.
“I woke up to the screams of my children and smoke that had filled the room,” Hlongwane, a steelworker at a Uitenhage factory, said.
“She [Klaas] told me to run to open the burglar door [security gate] while she ran to the children.
“When she entered the [twins’] room, I heard her calling the children, who were screaming hysterically.
“I managed to open the [front] door and called for help. As I was calling for people [to help], I heard their [Klaas and the twins’] cries were becoming faint so I ran back inside.” He said the door of the twins’ bedroom did not normally lock, but it would not budge when he tried to open it.
“I think that Vuyokazi had fallen by the door and had blocked it from opening,” the traumatised father said.
“My neighbour joined me inside the shack and we both tried to push the door ajar, but it was stuck.”
The intensity of the flames forced Hlongwane and his neighbour out of the shack.
On their second attempt to enter the shack, the fire blocked them from reaching the bedroom door.
A distraught Jason Blaauw, 26, who lives in the main house on the property and had tried with Hlongwane to save Klaas and the children, described the harrowing ordeal and the feeling of helplessness as the
fire raged through the shack. Blaauw said he had inherited the now destroyed structure from his father.
“I was woken up by a loud bang on my back window from Eddie who told me the shack was on fire and his family was trapped inside,” he said. “Without hesitation I went to help. “I heard the mother and the children screaming inside but we could not open the door to the room they were in.
“Eddie was crying hysterically. The only thing I could do was to try to put out the fire using water from a nearby sink.”
Paramedics took Hlongwane to Uitenhage Provincial Hospital to be treated for his injuries.
Police spokeswoman Captain Gerda Swart said the fire started at about 4.45am. She said the police and the fire department had been summoned but the shack was already engulfed in flames when they arrived.
“The cause of the fire is under investigation,” Swart said.
Hlongwane said he had been the last to go to bed and had not left anything flammable on.
Blaauw described Hlongwane and Klaas as a breath of fresh air to be around.
He said Hlongwane was a loving father to his children and partner to Klaas. The couple had been together for seven years.
“[Tomorrow] would have been Vuyokazi’s birthday.
“Eddie had planned to have a braai for her to celebrate her special day,” Blaauw said.
Hlongwane said his family, who live in the Free State, would arrive in Uitenhage over the weekend to assist with funeral arrangements.
In the meantime, he would be staying at either Blaauw’s or at a colleague’s home.
Uitenhage Cluster acting commander Brigadier Laurence Soekoe expressed his condolences to the family.