Families of the victims of a hearth in downtown Johannesburg have been nonetheless trying to find family members at mortuaries and hospitals on Friday to see if they’d lived or died, a day after the blaze tore by means of a overcrowded constructing in one of many deadliest residential fires in South African historical past.

The fireplace, which broke out within the early hours of Thursday, consumed a five-story constructing that was an unlawful dwelling for lots of of households and which has change into a grisly image of official failure to deal with a dire housing disaster in Johannesburg.

At least 74 folks died within the fireplace, a dozen of them youngsters, with some victims leaping to their deaths from the constructing and others trapped inside. Officials stated that among the victims have been so badly burned that it was arduous to establish their our bodies. Rescue staff have been nonetheless searching on Thursday night to recuperate victims from the constructing. On Friday morning, police have been seen taking search canines across the charred website.

Relatives of individuals caught within the blaze have been visiting hospitals the place officers stated greater than 60 folks have been being handled, hoping to seek out members of the family alive.

Others gathered outdoors authorities mortuaries early on Friday, after well being officers urged them to return ahead to attempt establish among the useless.

“All I want to see today, is to see the body,” one man who believed his brother had died within the fireplace informed SABC News as he waited outdoors a Johannesburg mortuary on Friday morning. “I hear, yes, but I need to see. But right now we are still in the dark,” he added.

“This is the type of death that we never wish on anyone,” President Cyril Ramaphosa stated on Thursday night on the scene of the blaze. Assistance can be given to survivors who misplaced their properties, a lot of whom have been in a state of shock and harm, he stated.

He referred to as the tragedy a “wake-up call,” underlining the urgency of coping with the power housing state of affairs that afflicts poor components of Johannesburg particularly. The metropolis’s officers wanted to seek out options to the problem of housing in certainly one of South Africa’s most populous cities, he stated. He referred to as it “a difficult lesson.”

The explanation for the blaze remained unclear on Friday morning and officers stated they have been establishing an investigation, which can take a while.

Preliminary proof prompt that the fireplace began on the bottom ground of the constructing, an area official stated, and a safety gate might have trapped many residents as they tried to flee. Some of the earliest flames, according to imagery of the fire, have been noticed within the constructing’s courtyard however the precise origin of the blaze was unknown.

Rights teams and residents stated they’ve lengthy feared such a tragedy in a metropolis the place lots of derelict buildings are illegally occupied and 1000’s of residents reside in harmful situations.

The buildings typically should not have entry to working water, electrical energy and dealing bogs, or security options like fireplace escapes, extinguishers and sprinklers. That has prompted residents to gentle open fires for gentle, cooking and heat.

The constructing that burned on Thursday is owned by the town. Formerly used for controlling the motion of Black staff through the apartheid period, lately the constructing had been leased to a nonprofit group that supplied ladies and youngsters emergency shelter. But it was then deserted, residents stated, and have become a warren of subdivided dwellings through which lots of of individuals had sheltered.

In October 2019, the authorities raided the constructing and arrested 140 folks in an unlawful lease scheme, stated Floyd Brink, the town supervisor of Johannesburg, however the case was closed in 2022 for lack of proof.