NO FATALITIES AFTER ALEX FIRE

RELIEF efforts were under way yesterday in Johannesburg’s Alexandra township after a fire swept through about 500 shacks the previous afternoon, razing scores to the ground and leaving hundreds of people without shelter, food and clothes.

Aid group Gift of the Givers said its teams were onsite. It said it had moved a mother who had given birth a day earlier, and another with four children who lost everything in the fire, to its logistics centre in Bramley.

“Exact details as to the cause, loss of lives, number of homes destroyed, numbers of people displaced, extent of material loss is not quantifiable currently,” it said. “Our teams are registering the rest of the victims and transporting them to a nearby hall where we are providing food, bottled water, blankets and mattresses.”

Johannesburg Emergency Management Services spokesperson Nana Radebe said there were no fatalities or injuries as a direct result of the fire at the Greenville informal settlement on Vincent Tshabalala Road, formerly London Road. | African News Agency (ANA)