Only 12 of 74 Joburg CBD fire victims are identifiable
Spokesperson of Johannesburg Emergency Services, Robert Mulaudzi said his team would conduct a process called final sweep.
“We are going to send firefighters inside the building floor to floor to just make sure there are no other bodies that might still be trapped inside. From then we will hand over to the police. The number of people that are injured is standing at 60. Out of that number 13 are children.”
Minister of social development, Lindiwe Zulu, said: “We need a proper co-ordinated effort to deal with what happened yesterday. We engage with province to make sure what happened does not happen in future. I call on relevant authorities to find the man who was collecting rent from the people and never cared about their safety.”
Zulu said the building doesn’t belong to her department.
“We need to deal with post-traumatic stress, and the law will take its course.”
Asked about allegations that NGOs keep women and children in dilapidated buildings because people were not getting help from government, Zulu dismissed the claims.
“There is no NGO that can keep women and children under such circumstances. If you run an NGO there are due processes, standards and norms that must be followed. The department spends R82bn per year on NPOs and NGOs to do their job and I can tell there are those who are doing the best.
“Many of them go beyond what government is giving them. As far as we’re concerned, we support the NGOs by training them and deregistering those who fail to do their job.”
