AMN / WEB DESK
At least 63 people have been killed after a fire broke out in a five-story building in central Johannesburg in South Africa today.
According to South Africa’s public broadcaster SABC, emergency services were swiftly mobilised, with firefighters currently engaged in efforts to extinguish the raging blaze. More than 40 others have been injured in the fire in the city’s central business district.
Authorities said the fire had been largely extinguished but smoke still seeped out of windows of the blackened building in downtown Johannesburg. The building was an informal settlement housing homeless people while they looked for permanent accommodation. Reports suggest as many as 200 people lived in the building. South African emergency services spokesperson Robert Mulaudzi said the building’s status as a homeless shelter had made it harder to account for those killed and missing, as those living there were doing so without formal lease agreements.