Six family members die in a shack fire, young girl is in critical condition

Six family members have died when their shack caught fire in the Marikana informal settlement in Ekurhuleni on Monday, leaving only one survivor – a young girl who's in a critical condition in the hospital. 

According to Ekurhuleni emergency services spokesperson William Tladi, the fire broke out in the early hours of Monday morning, consuming a four-room shack where a family of seven was sleeping.

Emergency services received a call at 3.08am.

By the time they arrived, the shack was already engulfed in flames. Despite community members’ brave attempts to extinguish the fire using buckets and water containers, the flames had taken a deadly toll.

“Among the deceased are two toddlers, one [was] just one and a half years old, the other four years old. They were found burnt beyond recognition. Two more children, aged 12 and 20, also perished in the fire. Their bodies, like those of their parents [the mother aged 42 and the father aged 47] were so severely burned that identifying them individually has become a heartbreaking challenge for authorities and family members.

“It’s difficult for us now to identify who is who. Just a little bit of one or two of them can be identified by the families. But yes, we do have the names of the entire family and their ages. We’re working carefully and delicately to recover their remains from beneath the rubble, one by one,” said Tladi. 

The only survivor, believed to be a seven-year-old daughter, was found with critical burn wounds and was privately transported to the hospital for emergency treatment. Her condition remains critical.

Tladi said the layout of the informal settlement helped prevent the blaze from spreading further. “Fortunately, the informal settlement here has been restructured more formally, with space between the homes. So while the four-roomed shack burned down completely, the neighbouring structures survived.”

The cause of the fire remains unknown. Police and forensic experts are investigating. The authorities are managing the scene, including the removal of the bodies to a pathology facility for further analysis.

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