CAPE TOWN, South Africa — A retired Constitutional Court pass judgement on will lead an official inquiry into final week’s fire at a derelict building in downtown Johannesburg that left a minimum of 76 other people lifeless in considered one of South Africa’s worst tragedies, the government stated Tuesday.
Justice Sisi Khampepe will lead a three-member panel in the hunt for to ascertain “who must shoulder total responsibility for this tragedy,” the government stated. The inquiry may also have a look at the superiority of rundown constructions which are illegally “hijacked.”
The fire ripped through a city-owned building that had effectively been abandoned by authorities and taken over by unofficial “landlords” who were illegally renting out space to around 200 poor families desperately looking for some form of accommodation.
People were living in shacks and other informal structures crammed into the five-story building, including in the basement parking garage, emergency responders said. The crowding and lack of proper fire escape routes likely contributed to the large number of deaths, emergency services said. Some people jumped out of windows three or four stories high in an attempt to escape the blaze, witnesses said.
The tragedy in the inner city’s Marshalltown district highlighted Johannesburg’s problem with broken-down buildings that are not under the control of city authorities.
The police commissioner for Gauteng province, which includes South Africa’s biggest city, said there are around 700 derelict buildings no longer under the control of officials in Johannesburg’s city center that pose a danger to those living inside them.
“In Johannesburg, the issue of stolen buildings is becoming a crisis, necessitating drastic action,” Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi said in a statement released by the government’s official news agency announcing the investigation. “A thorough intervention is required to ensure that disasters like the Marshalltown fire, one of the deadliest in recent memory, never happen again.”
The fee of inquiry will document its findings to Lesufi, who appointed the panel, the government stated.
At least 12 of the sufferers of the nightime fire have been kids, and 88 folks have been injured. Scores had been left homeless.
Many of the ones killed have been overseas nationals from Malawi, Tanzania and different African international locations, and government are interesting for assist in figuring out the our bodies of sufferers now being held at Johannesburg mortuaries. More than 60 of the our bodies have been burned past reputation and require DNA research to substantiate their indentities, government stated. They have given households 30 days to say the our bodies of relations.
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