Emergency services attended to a building fire in the Joburg CBD on Saturday. Picture: X/ @CityofJoburgEMS
15 shacks were destroyed when a fire broke out at an alleged abandoned building in the Johannesburg CBD on Saturday.
Johannesburg emergency services said they were called out to the blaze at an “abandoned building” in Jeppestown.
“The cause of the fire incident is still a subject of investigations,” it said.
After extinguishing the blaze, emergency services inspected the building and found it had been used as an informal settlement.
A video of the inspection showed a maze of dark, narrow pathways between corrugated iron sheet homes, complete with windows.
Curtains were drawn, to give occupants privacy, while residents met at a communal basin and water collection area.
ALSO READ: ‘Joburg CBD building turned into informal settlement’ − EMS
City officials visited several hijacked buildings in the Joburg CBD and Hillbrow last year and found appalling conditions.
Residents stay in rooms with no windows, ventilation or light. They have to beat off brazen rats, and the corridors they walk and socialise in are often flooded with water and other waste.
“You have a situation where people will stay here but there are no windows.
“They [residents] are using candles most of the time, and when they are left can cause fire.
“So during the fire, he cannot get out of here because there are no emergency exits,” MMC for public safety Dr Mgcini Tshwaku’s said of one room in the Florence Nightingale building visited.
The city said it was in the process of refurbishing the Casa Mia building and had relocated residents when the Covid-19 pandemic struck and the building was hijacked.
Residents said they were paying rent of between R1,500 and over R3,000, with many residents employed.
NOW READ: Panicking Joburg CBD fire victims were ‘squashed against closed gate’
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