Fire breaks out in Durban building

There were no injuries when a three-storey Durban building caught fire in the early hours of Tuesday.

The fire affected two foreign-owned shops and an “unregistered” students' accommodation facility.

eThekwini metro’s central fire department was called to a fire at 535 Pixley Ka Seme (West) Street at about 2am.

“The smoke had entered the building that houses students and we had to evacuate everyone. We then ventilated the building because it had poor air flow. All in all it took four hours to get everything under control,” said Nkulu Dube, eThekwini central division commander.

The building comprises foreign-owned shops on the ground floor, students' accommodation on the first floor and a daily accommodation/hotel on the second and third floors.

Dube confirmed that there were no injuries apart from smoke inhalation among the students. He said the cause of the fire was yet to be determined, but they suspect a faulty electrical board.

Dube added they found the student accommodation on the first floor to be unregistered and unsafe. It has 13 units, with each unit having four bunk beds shared among eight students.

“We discovered that the student accommodation is illegal, and our fire safety department was called in. The owners were given notice to rectify the deviations because we could otherwise end up with a similar catastrophe to the one in Johannesburg,” he said.

One shop owner, who refused to disclose his name, said he lost more than 100kg of food stock.

“I don’t know what caused the fire or where it started, but it was about 1am when I heard about it. I’ve had to throw away more than 100kg of stock. I’ve given some to the vagrants that are lining up here — like chips and other stuff that can still be eaten — and the rest will be taken by the rubbish truck,” he said.

The building is about 250m from the soon-to-be demolished Xinhua Emporium China Mall, which caught fire in January last year.

TimesLIVE