Johannesburg - Preliminary investigations have indicated that the inner-city fire that claimed the lives of two toddlers, aged 2 and 3, at a makeshift crèche on Monday was caused by an electrical fault.
Spokesman for Joburg Emergency Services (EMS) Robert Mulaudzi told The Star on Tuesday morning that the downtown Joburg building was old.
He said the EMS didn’t know the exact number of children who were in the building when the fire broke out, but a so-far undisclosed number were rescued and treated for minor smoke inhalation by emergency personnel while two were found dead on the scene.
“No one suffered any burns during the fire.
“And only two people, an adult believed to be a supervisor or teacher and a 3-year-old, were admitted to hospital after the incident.
“They were treated for smoke inhalation and are in a stable condition,” said Mulaudzi.
Meanwhile, grieving parents were on Tuesday morning finding it hard to come to terms with the deaths of their children.
They felt frustrated, they said, because they were “not getting answers”.
Bheki Ncube, the father of the 2-year-old girl who died, said his daughter left for crèche on Monday morning like every other day, but now she would never come home again and no one was telling his family what had happened.
“My daughter was happy to go to crèche. She has been attending there for about a year.
“We want to know what happened, but we are not getting any answers,” he said.
When the pathologists came to pick up the children’s bodies on Monday night, their parents cried uncontrollably.
The second-floor crèche lay in ruins on Tuesday morning, the walls black and most of the room’s contents damaged beyond recognition.
The exterior of the Chesterfield building in Hillbrow was also covered in black smoke and many of the windows were broken as a result of the fire.
Inside, the permeating smell of the blaze, together with the pungent odour that penetrates the building itself, still fills the room.
A small orange chair lies among the debris of steel and glass from the broken window.
These are the only items that remain.
One of the residents who helped escort the children out of the flat when the fire broke out at about 6pm was patrolling the building on Tuesday morning.
He told The Star he was in his flat, nearby the crèche, when he heard people screaming: “Fire! fire!”
“When I saw what direction the fire was coming from, my heart sank because I knew there were children inside,” said the man, who did not want to be named.
Residents brought buckets of water to extinguish the flames, then braved the burning room to carry the children to safety.
The man said he feared that if the fire spread to the rest of the building, it could have burnt the lifts, causing people to be trapped in the densely populated building.
He regretted they weren’t in time to save the two children who died.
On Tuesday morning, a group of traumatised residents congregated outside the multiple-story building, asking how such a tragedy could have happened.
“We are not sure what started the fire and now we have to live with the fact that we weren’t able to save those innocent little children,” said one of the residents, who did not want to be named.
The Star