Joburg fire toll rises as South Africa debates ‘hijacked’ buildings

AFP | Johannesburg        

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

The death toll from a fire that engulfed a Johannesburg building rose to 76, authorities said yesterday as relatives of the victims waited outside a mortuary to identify their loved ones.

Health Minister Joe Phaahla said two people died in hospital a day after flames ripped through the five-storey building forcing South Africa to confront an illegal housing “crisis”.

“We’ve got 76 fatalities,” Phaahla told reporters, after visiting some of the more than 60 people who were injured and receiving treatment at healthcare facilities in the city. Authorities were at work to identify the victims, whose bodies were brought to a morgue in Soweto.

Thembalethu Mpahlaza, the head of forensics services in Johannesburg’s Gauteng province, said the process would require DNA tests as most were “burnt beyond recognition”. There were only “12 bodies that are identifiable, that can be viewed,” he told reporters outside the mortuary.

Earlier in the day, search dogs combed the charred building while charity workers brought blankets, clothing and other goods to more than 100 survivors accommodated at a Johannesburg shelter.

The fire has reopened a debate about so-called hijacked buildings -- old disused blocks that have fallen under the control of criminal syndicates who collect rent from squatters. President Cyril Ramaphosa said it was “a wake-up call for us to begin to address the situation of housing in the inner cities” as he visited the site late on Thursday.