{"id":6699,"date":"2023-08-31T17:52:50","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T12:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/?p=6699"},"modified":"2023-08-31T17:52:52","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T12:52:52","slug":"building-fire-in-s-africa-kills-more-than-70","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/news\/building-fire-in-s-africa-kills-more-than-70\/","title":{"rendered":"Building fire in S. Africa kills more than 70"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>A fire that engulfed a five-storey building killed more than 70 people including children in central Johannesburg on Thursday, the South African city&#8217;s emergency services said.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another 52 were injured, some suffering from smoke inhalation, and were taken for treatment at local hospitals, Emergency Management Services spokesman Robert Mulaudzi said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We have now 73 fatalities and 52 people injured who were transported to various healthcare facilities for further medical care,&#8221; Mulaudzi said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At least seven children were among those killed by the flames, in what is on track to become one of the deadliest fires worldwide in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The youngest victim was less than two years old, he said. Some were left burned beyond recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Firefighters at the scene have put out the flames and are &#8220;busy with damping down&#8221;, while search and recovery operations are ongoing, Mulaudzi said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We are moving floor by floor conducting these body recoveries,&#8221; he told local broadcaster ENCA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An AFP reporter at the scene said emergency services were continuing to bring charred bodies out of the building, laying them down under blankets and sheets on the street outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It is indeed a sad day for the city of Johannesburg&#8230; over 20 years in the service, I&#8217;ve never come across something like this,&#8221; Mulaudzi said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was not immediately clear what caused the blaze, which broke out overnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mgcini Tshwaku, a member of the city&#8217;s mayoral committee in charge of public safety, said candles used for lighting inside the structure were a likely cause.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A fire that engulfed a five-storey building killed more than 70 people including children in central Johannesburg on Thursday, the South African city&#8217;s emergency services said. Another 52 were injured, some suffering from smoke inhalation, and were taken for treatment at local hospitals, Emergency Management Services spokesman Robert Mulaudzi said. &#8220;We have now 73 fatalities [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":6700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-news","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6699"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}