It may take time to determine what started a Johannesburg apartment fire on Thursday morning and why more than 70 people died. But witness accounts, images of the fire and a site visit in May indicate the five-story building had a litany of major safety issues that made it vulnerable to a deadly fire.
Preliminary evidence suggests the fire started on the ground floor, a local official said, and trapped many residents behind locked gates as it spread. Although the exact origin of the fire is unknown, some of the earliest flames were seen in a courtyard behind the building where people lived.
Flammable Interior
The city-owned building is officially abandoned, but it serves as a crowded informal settlement for people who need to be close to the city center but can’t afford even the minimum rent. Squatters regularly divide rooms into small spaces and rent them out.
Without regular electricity, residents also used fire for heat and light in the cramped buildings. Combustible materials such as cardboard and sheets dividing living areas. Electrical cables dangled from the ceiling.
The dangerous conditions of the building can be seen in photos from a visit to the building in May by New York Times journalists, who were reporting an article about the chaotic state of the city.
One of the building’s residents, Sinenhlanhla Cele, said he woke up to a fire in the courtyard below the building. Photos show corrugated metal structures erected in the courtyard next to piles of rubbish.
Blocked Exits
Mgcini Tshwaku, the Johannesburg councilor in charge of public safety, said a gate to prevent theft trapped many residents, who were unable to escape the fire. The burning interior of the building, paired with a blocked escape, may have made the fire especially deadly.
But it was not clear where the residents were trapped. A report The building is said to have multiple anti-burglary gates, possibly preventing residents from moving from one floor to another.
Mr. Tshwaku said people were jumping out of windows to escape when he arrived at the scene of the fire. At least one person, a teenager, died when he jumped from the fifth floor, according to his friend.
Photos from the aftermath of the fire show blankets hanging from windows on one side of the building where residents escaped.
Mr. Tshwaku said city inspectors who visited the building described conditions similar to many of the more than 600 other illegally occupied derelict buildings in the city. They often lack fire escapes, fire extinguishers, water, electricity and functioning toilets.
Lack of Supervision
In October 2019, city officials raided the building and arrested 140 foreigners for illegally collecting rent from the building’s tenants, according to Floyd Brink, Johannesburg’s city manager. This happened just a few months after illegal occupants took over the building, which had become a shelter for women and children.
But the city last conducted a safety inspection on the building in June 2019, before it was illegally seized. Since then the officials have not allowed it in.
“We don’t want to go into a hostile environment,” said Rapulane Monageng, acting head of emergency management services for the city, at a news conference.
Sarah Eckinger contributed reporting.
