Shack fire kills 3
Eighteen families homeless
nosipho mngoma
A 23-year-old man, his girlfriend and her relative have been burned to death in a shack fire, while 18 other Clermont families were displaced.
His relatives on Sunday told the Daily News that he heard screaming for help, saying he could not find the door as flames engulfed the corrugated iron dwelling.
They asked that he not be named until the extended family had been informed.
His aunt said the father of two went to visit his girlfriend, Nocawe Makhala, 25, just three hours before the fire started.
His family home is mere metres from where he died in the Beachway informal settlement.
“I heard people shouting and saw the blaze. I could see it was in the vicinity of my nephew’s girlfriend’s shack,” said the man’s aunt.
This was just after 1am on Sunday. She was told her nephew had made it out.
“People told us different things, but we couldn’t find them and their phones were off,” she said.
Fire fighters eventually put out the fire and it was reported that only one body had been found. Later, two more bodies were discovered, that of his girlfriend and her nephew.
“They had got out of bed, but seemingly could not find the door, which would have been locked with a chain,” she wept. In the dwelling opposite, the skeletal remains of Makhala’s relative, Zesipho Makunga, 22, were found.
Only the corrugated iron sheets used to build the homes, gas cylinders and the metal spring frames of the beds were recognisable, everything else had been burned to ashes.
Daily News