SW News: At least 74 people were killed in a deadly fire that engulfed a five-story building in the South African city of Johannesburg on Thursday. The blaze in the derelict, overcrowded building in the downtown area also resulted in 61 people suffering burns. It is reported to be the deadliest fire disaster in the country’s recent history.

On Friday, health officials asked the kith and kin of the victims to identify the bodies kept in the morgue. According to authorities, there are 12 children among the casualties in the blaze that took hours for the firefighters to bring under control. Reports say that the entrance and exit of the building were locked when the disaster happened resulting in the high death toll.

Investigators are saying that it was a disaster that was waiting to happen as the run-down building was divided into scores of small rooms to house close to 400 migrant workers. They said that flammable materials like cardboard and fabric separated the living spaces. There are allegations that electric wires dangled from the ceiling and many people clandestinely hooked up to the power grid. A good number of them also depend on candles and small fires to light up their living space at night.

There are media reports that several residents tried to jump from the building in a desperate attempt to escape from the inferno. Several casualties resulted when an internal security gate remained locked at the time of the mishap. Some of the bodies were found behind a locked gate on the ground floor.
Identification of victims is going on.

So far, two South Africans, two Malawi nationals and two Tanzanians have been identified. The disaster took place in one of the several dilapidated buildings that lodge thousands of migrants from Malawi, Lesotho, and Tanzania who come in search of better prospects.  The disaster has triggered calls for a crackdown on such overcrowded buildings that dot the city.