By Hannes de Wet
Three people were killed and six were injured when a massive blast - believed to have been caused by a stockpile of commercial explosives - ripped through a quiet Pretoria suburb on Tuesday.
Emergency workers and police with dogs were still combing the rubble of three homes in Villieria for the remains of the dead late in the afternoon.
Asked how many bodies had been recovered, a police spokesperson, George Francis, said: "You can't really talk about bodies ... (it is) a leg here an arm there".
Police and paramedics said they did not expect to find any more survivors.
Initially, police believed four people had died in the 11.30am blast, but a Pretoria City Council paramedic, Johann Claasen, said late on Tuesday afternoon that only three were believed to have been killed.
Two women, both critically injured, were removed from the rubble and taken to Pretoria Academic Hospital. They were in the kitchen of the house at the centre of the blast, Claasen said. They suffered mostly chest injuries.
Four other people were slightly injured.
"They were screaming and shouting from beneath the rubble as emergency workers were digging to reach them," Claasen said.
People at the scene said two children were unaccounted for in the blast, but this could not be confirmed.
Three adjacent houses were destroyed in the blast while six others on either side of these three were declared unsafe for occupation.
The explosion left a crater about three metres deep, according to a security guard posted at the cordon that was thrown across the scene in 27th Avenue in Villieria, just north of central Pretoria.
The house at the centre of the blast was believed to have belonged to a professional blaster and police suspect a stockpile of commercial explosives detonated accidentally. Francis said it appeared that the owner of the house was not at home at the time of the blast.
Serious questions would be asked about why such explosives were being kept in a residential area.
"One needs a licence for this stuff and it should be kept in a safe place like a bunker," Francis said.
Francis said the dead and injured were possibly family members or employees of the owner.
Rescuers also found a seriously injured dog in the rubble. He was treated and is expected to live.
Inspectors from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) arrived to tend to other pets traumatised by the blast.
Earlier on Tuesday, neighbours told how two men attempted to extinguish a fire in the garage of the house seconds before the massive blast.
The Leysath family, who live opposite the house where the explosion occurred, said they feared their gardener and one of their neighbours were among the casualties.
Arthur Leysath and the gardener were talking to each other in the front garden when they noticed smoke coming from the garage of the house and paint blistering on the exterior wall.
Realising that the inside of the garage was ablaze, the gardener fetched a hose while a neighbour, Hannes Werner, arrived with a fire extinguisher. The two men set about trying to fight the fire.
At that point, Arthur Leysath ran into his mother's home to telephone the fire brigade. As he picked up the phone, there was a massive explosion.
"It was hell of mess. It was as if everything went to pieces," he said.
His mother, Julia Leysath, was making tea in the kitchen at the time.
"Everything just shattered. The windows flew in and the ceiling came down. I thought perhaps my geyser had blown up ... I went outside and all we could see was dust."
Julia Leysath could only give the gardener's first name as she did not know his surname.
The fate of the gardener and Werner was unclear two hours after the blast.
The Leysaths, along with other residents in the immediate vicinity, were evacuated soon after the blast. Werner's son, also Hannes, and his mother Maria were waiting behind a police cordon for news of his father.
"I don't know what happened to my father, whether he is alive, dead or being treated in hospital. Nobody is telling us anything. All I know is that my father tried to extinguish the apparent fire," Werner said.
Francis did not know if Werner and the gardener were among the dead or injured.
Several city blocks around the scene were cordoned off and police evacuated houses near the blast site.
Pretoria Disaster Management said it would arrange accomodation for residents who had been left homeless or who had been forbidden from returning to their homes.
Other residents would be escorted by police to their homes but the street was closed to the public for the night.
Francis described the search operation as "hazardous" because there were believed to be undetonated explosives in the rubble.
The Pretoria fire department and members of the local army commando were helping police search the rubble and guards from private security firms had volunteered their services to protect the scene.
Police used barbed wire mesh commonly used for crowd control at large public protests, to cordon off the site.
Windows in houses as far as 500m from the centre of the blast were broken and ceilings collapsed.
The national police commissioner, Jackie Selebi, and Gauteng safety and liaison minister, Nomvula Mokonyane, were scheduled to visit the scene of the blast on Tuesday. - Sapa