Two of the five people who died when their residential hotel caught fire around 1am on Wednesday, leapt to their deaths, Johannesburg emergency services representative Malcolm Midgley said.
Sixty-seven people were injured in the fire, most by smoke inhalation or falling glass shards. Midgley said two of the injured also jumped from windows in the
21-storey building.
Six of the 67 people were seriously injured, but none of the dead or injured were children. The fire, which allegedly started in the Rand Inn International
Hotel’s restaurant, was extinguished by 7am. Speaking around 7.45am, Midgley said emergency services and traffic police would still be on the scene for ”some time”.
Firefighters were damping down ”hotspots” in the building, on the corner of Bree and Klein streets in central Johannesburg, and also assisting traffic police in evacuating the bodies and injured. – Sapa