At least 73 dead in fire at multi-storey building in Johannesburg

Seven of the victims were children, a spokesperson for Emergency Management Services says

At least 73 people died in a massive fire in a multi-storey building in Johannesburg, South Africa’s biggest city.

Another 52 people were injured after a fire swept through the building in the city’s central business district, the municipal government said.

The fire broke out in the pre-dawn hours of Thursday in Marshalltown, Emergency Management Services said.

Seven of the victims of the blaze were children, including a one-year-old child, Robert Mulaudzi, the spokesperson for the EMS said.

Some of the people living in a maze of shacks and other makeshift structures inside the building died after jumping out of windows to escape the fire, a local government official said.

The death toll is likely to increase as a search-and-recovery operation is underway, Mr Mulaudzi said.

“Over 20 years in the service, I’ve never come across something like this,” he said.

Hours after the blaze, authorities said the fire was largely extinguished but thick-black smoke continued to seep out of the windows of the building in the downtown area of the city.

Visuals showed huge orange flames engulfing the lower floors as residents and neighbours escaped.

Some pictures from the area showed relatives crying near the covered bodies, lined up near the blackened building.

Johannesburg authorities said it is yet unknown what sparked the massive fire.

Reports suggest as many as 200 people lived in the building.

The five-storey building was effectively an “informal settlement”, attracting homeless individuals who sought shelter without entering into any official lease arrangements, Mr Mulaudzi said.

He said this situation made it difficult for the rescue workers to conduct search and rescue operations.