INLSA
One person has died and another 97 left homeless by shack fires across Cape Town, the city’s Disaster Risk Management Centre said on Saturday.
“One adult male was overwhelmed by a fire in his shack at Sheffield Road, Phillipi East,” said the head of the Cape Town Disaster Operations Centre Wilfred Schrevian Evan Solomons-Johannes in a statement.
Johannes said another shack was also destroyed in the same fire and two people left displaced.
Solomons said there had been three other incidents of shack fires in the city since Friday.
Just after 11pm on Friday, two people were left homeless after their shack in Khayelitsha was destroyed by fire.
Sixty nine people were displaced when sixteen shacks were destroyed by fire at the Egoli informal settlement in Schaapkraal just before 3am.
At 4.30 am, twenty 26 people were left homeless after eight shacks burnt down at the Freedom Farm informal settlement opposite the Cape Town International airport.
The cause of all the fires is unknown.
Police have opened an inquest into the death of the man from Phillipi East.
The victims have been given food parcels, clothing, blankets and building material by city officials. – Sapa
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One dead in Cape Town fires