At least 74 people were killed in a fire in South Africa

The Johannesburg City Fire Service says the fire started on the ground floor of a vacant building and that there are many more deaths than the London tower fire

Mr. Tshwaku said that many residents were trapped by the security gate and that initial evidence indicated the fire began on the ground floor. The building was one of more than 600 derelict structures in Johannesburg that are illegally occupied, he said.

The authorities were still trying to determine what caused the blaze. There was a five-story downtown building that had become a dilapidated informal settlement where electric cables hung in dark corridors and trash spilled from windows, a vivid illustration of a political crisis that has resulted in a lack of affordable housing in one of Africa’s most populous cities.

Officials said that many residents lit fires for warmth and light, posing a deadly hazard. Mgcini Tshwaku, a Johannesburg city councilman who oversees public safety, said that when he arrived at the scene of the fire, people were jumping out of windows to escape.

Firefighters were combing the floor by floor in search of bodies after extinguishing the fire. At least 12 children were among the dead, according to the city’s emergency services.

The blaze ranks among the deadliest residential fires in recent years. The death toll from the fire at the tower in London is already far higher than that of last year.

The chaotic state of Johannesburg: Witnesses of a fire that broke out in the business district of the building leased to an organization providing emergency housing for women

Journalists for The New York Times visited the building in May while reporting for an article about the chaotic state of Johannesburg. They saw a lot of trash in the air, a lot of garbage in the windows, and a bunch of tin shacks in the back of the building.

Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda of Johannesburg said that the city owned the building, which was once an apartheid government checkpoint for Black workers. He said that the city leased it in recent years to an organization that provided emergency housing for women, but that the nonprofit ended its operations there.

smoke could be seen from the windows of the blackened building after the fire was out. There were sheets and other material hung from the broken windows. It was not clear if people had used those items to try and escape the fire or if they were trying to save their possessions.

A witness who didn’t give his name said that he lived next door to where the fire started and heard people screaming for help.

The fire, which broke out in the central business district, resulted in 43 injuries, according to the Emergency Services Management spokesman.

There are many abandoned and broken down buildings in the area that are often taken over by desperate people looking for a home. They’re referred to as “hijacked buildings.”

Mulaudzi’s Firefighting Instability When the Fate Tolls: a Case Study of the Lazaret Building

Mulaudzi believes that the death toll will increase and more bodies will be trapped inside the building. The fire took three hours to contain, he said, and firefighters had only worked their way through three of the building’s five floors by mid-morning.