A MASSIVE fire has ripped through a five-storey building in South Africa’s largest city, killing at least 63 people.
A toddler is among the victims of the horror blaze that broke out overnight in Johannesburg, while another 43 people were injured.
A shocking image shared on social media shows how the sky was lit up by an ominous orange glow as the fire raged.
Emergency services said they had managed to extinguish the inferno while firefighters rescued residents in the apartment block.
Survivors, many suffering from smoke inhalation, who managed to escape the flames were rushed to local hospitals for treatment.
Spokesperson Robert Mulaudzi said the building in the downtown area of the major city was “an informal settlement”.
“So there [are] a lot of informal structures inside the building,” he said. “There is a lot of debris which we have to remove.
“We are moving floor by floor conducting these body recoveries,” he told local media.
“Over 20 years in the service, I’ve never come across something like this.”
Locals claim up to 200 people, who were reportedly homeless and looking for accommodation, may have been living in the complex.
Most read in The Sun
Reports suggest most of the residents were migrants from other African countries.
The flats have now been evacuated, leaving officials to begin a search and recovery operations to find missing occupants.
Officials expect the grisly death toll to rise further as they wade through the debris of the multi-storey building.
Those desperately searching for their loved ones were warned the chances of finding them alive are “very slim”.
Authorities say the fire has been largely extinguished, but black smoke continued to billow from the charred apartment block.
Chilling images show covered bodies lined up outside of the building as the search for further victims continues.
One frantic woman trying to track down her daughter sobbed as she told reporters: “This is not a place where somebody can live.
“I was trying to get her to come back home so she could get back to the life she was living before.”
More to follow… For the latest news on this story keep checking back at The Sun Online.Thesun.co.uk is your go to destination for the best celebrity news, football news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures and must-see video.
Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/thesun and follow us from our main Twitter account at @TheSun.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/feed/
Olivia Burke
