A NATIONAL TRAGEDY

The fire that claimed the lives of 77 people in Johannesburg CBD in the early hours of 31 August is devastating – 2023 must be declared as a national tragedy. This must serve as a rude awakening to the powers that be.

Such tragedies would not have happened had authorities taken the housing backlog and lack of accommodation seriously. Instead, they waste time in provincial legislatures fighting over control of major metropolitans – neglecting the wellbeing and interests of the poor voting masses in the process. Forming and dismantling government is the name of the game and it is what they do best.

I send my deepest sympathy to those who lost loved ones.

MCDIVETT KHUMBULANI TSHEHLA, EMAIL

It took the deaths of scores of people and an out-of-control inferno in downtown Jozi to get some action from the so-called authorities.

Filth, squalor, no running water, nonfunctioning toilets, garbage piled up knee-high . . . our TV screens were filled with the horrors of a city classified as “world class”.

There are many such ghastly buildings, tinderboxes, waiting to explode. They house desperate humans who have drifted into this country, unchecked, undocumented and now at the mercy of criminals and thugs who have laid claim to these hellholes.

Compassion is secondary as our country implodes under the weight of this deluge of humanity. Enough!

PETER BACHTIS, BENONI

Death by fire must be one of the worst ways to lose one’s life. My heart breaks for all those poor people. I heard one eyewitness say people were jumping out of the building.

It reminded me of the poor souls who leapt from the burning Twin Towers on 9/11. It’s just so tragic and avoidable. SHOCKED, EMAIL