Mother's agonising search for daughter at building gutted by fire in Joburg CBD

Treasurelee Shuping is looking for her 24-year-old daughter Matshidiso Zanele who was living in the Johannesburg building gutted by fire in the early hours of Thursday.

“I’m looking for her, she stayed in the building for over a year now. As soon as I heard the building was on fire I knew I had to run here.

“Now I’m kept in suspense because I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t get any direction. People are being evacuated and the death toll is rising.

“I’m very anxious, I don’t know if my daughter is alive,” Shuping said.

Though she was searching for her daughter, she disclosed they were not on talking terms.

“The building was in a very bad state, it’s not a place where people can live. That’s why I was trying to get her to come back home so that she can get back the life she used to live. But she doesn’t want to come back.”

By 8.30am the death toll had risen to 73, with 52 people injured.

Robert Mulaudzi, City of Johannesburg Emergency Management Services spokesperson, said the building is one of the hijacked properties in the city centre, occupied illegally without owner consent.

The search for survivors and retrieval of those who perished is a complex operation as there are shacks inside the building.

There isn't a legal electrical connection to the block, Mulaudzi said. 

“The building is hijacked, the people who stayed here did so illegally. It doesn’t have connecting of power, it wasn’t maintained, if so it must have been done illegally. They would use heating devices like paraffin and candles.

“The people who lived here told us there is a mixture of residents who reside in this area, some are foreign nationals.”

The cause of fire is a subject of investigation, he said.

“The chances of the number [of fatalities and injured] increasing is very high because of the nature of the environment we operate in. The risk of one being trapped is very high.

“There are shacks inside. We are moving in on all the floors to ensure there’s no trapped bodies and afterwards we will hand the scene over to the police.”

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