South African government announces official inquiry into deadly fire

A retired Constitutional Court judge will lead an official inquiry into last week’s fire at a derelict building in downtown Johannesburg that left at least 76 people dead in one of South Africa’s worst tragedies.
Justice Sisi Khampepe will lead a three-member panel seeking to establish “who must shoulder total responsibility for this tragedy,”.
The inquiry will also look at the prevalence of rundown buildings that are illegally “hijacked.”
The fire ripped through a city-owned building that had effectively been abandoned by authorities and taken over by unofficial “landlords” who were illegally renting out space to around 200 poor families desperately looking for some form of accommodation.
People were living in shacks and other informal structures crammed into the five-story building, including in the basement parking garage, emergency responders said.
The crowding and lack of proper fire escape routes likely contributed to the large number of deaths. Some people jumped out of windows three or four stories high in an attempt to escape the blaze, witnesses said.