Last August, a deadly fire in Johannesburg killed 76 people and exposed the housing crisis in South Africa’s largest city. An investigation puts the blame on officials who ignored “sounding the alarm” for years.
The eight-month investigation, led by a retired Constitutional Court judge, released its findings in a report on Sunday. Years of inaction by city agencies had left the building in a state of disrepair, the report said, singling out one senior official for responsibility.
“Had the city complied with its legal obligations as a property owner and municipality, the consequences of the fire could have been mitigated,” the report said.
In the early morning of August 31, a fire broke out in an abandoned building in downtown Johannesburg. It was once a women’s shelter and has been virtually abandoned by city agencies, although it is owned by the government and managed by the government agency Johannesburg Real Estate Corporation. Instead, some 600 people in desperate need of affordable housing squatted in the five-storey building, which became a tinderbox and eventually led to one of the deadliest residential fires in South Africa’s recent history.
While a resident of the building later admitted to setting the fire, the report found that city officials were aware of the “distressing conditions” and allowed the building to become a fire trap. The building, once known as the Ucindiso Women’s Shelter, was taken over by a criminal organization that collected rent.
The building has no municipal electricity or running water. Instead, residents used the building’s fire hoses and fire extinguishers to collect and store water and illegally connected electricity. They built partitions out of wood, cardboard and fabric, built sheds inside the rooms and cooked on paraffin stoves. Piles of trash were piled around the building. The building is considered a haven for crime in the area, but law enforcement is virtually non-existent, the report found.
The report found the city knew about the conditions for at least four years. Officials raided the building in 2019 and designated it for demolition, but no further action was taken, the report said. Dozens of people were evicted at the time, but squatters returned in greater numbers.
The report found that the city’s chief fire officer should have designated the building for emergency evacuation, a status that would have meant response times would have been no more than eight minutes during an emergency such as the Aug. 31 fire. Instead, the first fire trucks arrived 11 minutes after the emergency call, and more fire trucks arrived 19 minutes after the call. During the investigation, witnesses said the city’s beleaguered fire service did not have enough trucks to respond to disasters around Johannesburg.
A spokesman for the mayor’s office said Monday that the public report had not yet been received and that its recommendations would be studied once received.
When firefighters arrived at the scene, they found that the emergency evacuation points were blocked and the exits were welded shut by residents. Stairwells and hallways were used as temporary accommodation, and fire extinguishers in illegal apartments were empty or walled off, the report said.
Dozens of people jumped from the top floor as the fire got out of control. A woman who gave evidence at the inquest recalled the blood-curdling screams of people trapped behind steel doors. Emergency workers told the committee they found 11 bodies behind a steel door.
At an investigative meeting in late January, shocking confession A room full of lawyers and survivors were shocked when a 30-year-old man said he set the fire. The man, Sithembiso Mdlalose, said he sold drugs for gangs operating in the building. He sobbed and told the committee that on the night of the fire, he strangled a man involved in a dispute and tried to set the body on fire to hide the evidence. Mr Mdlalose was charged with 76 counts of murder.
The report found that while the City of Johannesburg did not set the fire, it bore some responsibility for the casualties. The committee recommended disciplinary action against the heads of the city’s housing, sanitation, electricity and water agencies. It also called for “appropriate action” to be taken against the Johannesburg real estate company’s long-term chief executive, Helen Botes, for her “complete disregard for the catastrophic condition of the Ucindiso building despite being aware of it since at least 2019.” its management”. The report does not propose specific measures.
Ms. Botts is responsible for the mayor’s office, but she has served longer than 10 mayors.
After the fire, The Times investigation The investigation found Ms Bottes faces allegations of corruption and mismanagement of the city’s vast housing portfolio. In testimony before the committee, Ms. Bottes accused squatters of violating city laws and blamed limited city budgets for preventing effective evictions. Like other officials, she also pointed to South Africa’s housing laws, which require the government to find alternative accommodation for evicted residents, as a challenge.
The initial death toll was 77, but Sunday’s report revised that number to 76. Among the dead were teachers and students looking for affordable housing, as well as dozens of migrants who had moved to Johannesburg from other African countries in search of work. Nineteen victims have yet to be identified. Dozens of survivors remain homeless and have moved into similar abandoned buildings around the city. More than 80 people were injured.
In the months after the fire, city officials bricked up the building and erected razor wire around its perimeter to prevent the return of desperate squatters. The committee recommended that the building be demolished and a memorial plaque erected in its place to commemorate the lives lost.
