City of Joburg mayor Mpho Phalatse has blamed illegal connections for the fire that destroyed about 400 shacks and left one person dead and several injured in Johannesburg.
The fire swept through an informal settlement near Kwa Mai Mai in the early hours of yesterday morning leaving over 800 people homeless..
Phalatse visited the area yesterday. She is convinced the fire was caused by illegal power connections
“Because of an illegal connection we have yet another tragic fire that claimed one life. The person has not been identified; apparently they were burnt beyond recognition. There is also a female who was injured and rushed to hospital. Unfortunately one of our EMS personnel was injured and rushed to the hospital as well,” said Phalatse.
She said affected fire victims will be relocated to a shelter nearby.
Phalatse said the arrangement by social development and disaster management are immediate.
She said the housing department needs to get the site ready and shacks will be erected in a week's time.
“The displaced individuals will be housed in a community development facility nearby and they will be provided with food, mattresses and whatever they may need through our partners that work with disaster management,” said Phalatse.
EMS spokesperson Nana Radebe said they received calls after 12am yesterday that there was fire everywhere and about 400 shacks were affected.
Radebe said they suspect the fire started around 11pm and it took about four to five hours to extinguish.
“We are communicating with community leaders to do a headcount of how many people have been displaced. One person was burned and killed and another one taken to hospital with minor injuries. The fire has been extinguished. We are monitoring if it will not reignite from any point. At the moment we don’t know what caused the fire,” said Radebe.
She said the community members were doing head-counts and then from there it would be known how many families had been displaced.
This is not the first time a fire has broken out in the informal settlement. Radebe said previously a fire was caused by the lighting source that they were using.
“Someone was cooking and the fire broke out,” she said.
Radebe also said: “Around that area we also have illegal connections. There might be a number of causes of the fire… we can’t narrow it down, we need to do preliminary investigations and see where the fire started.”
She said they will also do interviews with the community to get more information.
Radebe said the fire spread quickly due to overcrowding since most shacks are attached to each other.
“We have a fire safety officer on the scene who is conducting investigations. We will check the shacks if there are any imbawula (braizers or African heaters) or any object that might have caused the fire,” she said.
Disaster management was also on scene. Radebe said the department would find an alternative place which is not more than a few kilometres for those displaced who want to move.
She said at times there are people who take their belongings that they managed to save during the inferno and start rebuilding and not wait to be placed.
The informal settlement is surrounded by illegal connections that are visible.
Humanitarians Gift of the Givers arrived in the area to assist affected victims.
“We came here for assessment. So far we have realised that it is cold and it will be cold at night. We are looking at providing immediate aid which is in the form of hot meals, water, blankets, mattresses, shelter and more. The team is working on bringing aid as we are talking,” said Gift of the Givers co-ordinator Tapiwa Marima.