Just two days into the new academic year, pupils and teachers at the Nomzamo Madikizela Mandela public school in Thornhill woke to find most of their school building gutted by fire, Eastern Cape police said on Friday.
Five of the classrooms and an administration block were burnt to ashes on Thursday night, spokesperson Priscilla Naidu said.
This left school principal Zhunikazi Zuba with no choice but to send the learners home on Friday morning.
”Police spotted the blaze at the school when doing routine patrols in Thornhill at 10pm,” Naidu said.
Firefighters were alerted and community members used buckets of water to try to douse the blaze. But even the firefighters could not extinguish the fire in time.
”The whole block of five classrooms was gutted to the ground … windows of remaining classrooms were shattered, and roofs were partially burnt,” she said.
Firefighters could only save the adjacent Thornhill Primary School. Police are investigating the cause of the fire.
Zuba said pupils will be crammed into the remaining three classrooms on Monday. — Sapa