FIRE RAVAGES SOUTH AFRICA’S PARLIAMENT
Firefighters battled a large blaze at South Africa’s 138-year-old Parliament complex in Cape Town on Sunday, and officials feared the damage could be extensive.
Police have arrested one suspect, who was found inside the complex, minister of public works and infrastructure Patricia de Lille said at a news conference Sunday. She said the investigation was ongoing and had been turned over to South Africa’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation.
De Lille said CCTV “confirmed that someone was in the building from the early hours in the morning,” and that “someone had closed one of the valves” for fire sprinklers, explaining why some reportedly did not go off. The sprinkler system recently passed a maintenance check.
Investigations are under way into the circumstances of these security breaches, she said, as South African media questioned why the complex had not been better protected.
Hours after the early morning fire began, President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the still-inflamed scene and called it “a terrible and devastating event.”
Later Sunday, Parliament released a statement saying that the fire was “under control” in the area containing its upper house, the National Council of Provinces. But it said firefighting efforts continued in the National Assembly chamber, where some offices were “severely gutted” and other sections suffered “significant damage.”
Parliament said that “all efforts” will be made to “limit any disruption” of its work.
The fire appeared to have started around the complex’s old assembly hall and spread to the National Assembly building, Ramaphosa said.
Parliament was not in session at the time of the fire.
The full extent of the damage is not known, but J.P. Smith, a Cape Town mayoral committee member responsible for safety and security, predicted that it “will be significant.”