Emergency services searching for 6-year-old who fell into open manhole

City of Joburg Emergency Services (EMS) are searching for a six-year-old boy who slipped into an open manhole on Monday, while playing around the open hazard in Dlamini, Soweto.

Johannesburg Emergency Services’ Robert Mulaudzi said they received a call just after 9:30am on Monday, and are on site to try and locate and rescue the child.

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“We can confirm that City of Johannesburg Emergency Management Services Search and Rescue Unit together with Joburg Water technicians are on site where the child slipped in the manhole. At his stage the circumstance s behind the incident is subject to an investigation.”

“We just want to urge all out residents out there, especially adults and parents to make sure that they try and monitor the young kids to stay away from playing next to these manholes and also drainage systems, so that we can be able to prevent such incident like this one,” Mulaudzi said.

Environment and infrastructure services MEC Michael Sun said in a tweet he will monitor the situation and ensure all available resources are used to rescue the little boy.

Meanwhile, Johannesburg Housing MMC Mlungisi Mabaso has confirmed that they have provided the victims of the Kwa Mai Mai informal settlement fire temporary shelter.

Hundreds of homes were gutted in the densely populated informal settlement by the fire that broke out on Sunday

The fire tore through more than four hundred structures.

It is believed that illegal electricity connections were the cause of the fire that left over four hundred families homeless.

“The biggest lesson out of this is illegal connections are big liability not only to the city and its residents, but also to the occupants of those properties that are illegally connected, they are dangerous and we’ve lost too many lives. This is not something we want to see going on,” Johannesburg Mayor Phalatse said.

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