South African firefighters and South African Police Service officers work at the sceen of a fire in Johannesburg on August 31, 2023
Michele Spatari | Afp | Getty Images
More than 50 people were killed and over 40 injured in a fire overnight in the central business district of South Africa’s biggest city Johannesburg, the municipal government said on Thursday.
Firefighters and emergency vehicles were on the scene, while bodies lay covered on a street near the site of the deadly blaze, Reuters photographs showed.
The television station Newzroom Afrika said the fire happened in a five-storey building that had been abandoned at one stage but where people had been living.
It was not immediately clear what caused the blaze.
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