The joy of the festive season and Christmas has been marred with sorrow for several families of Newclare in Johannesburg after they lost everything when a fire ripped through their block of flats.  

Jolin Meyer, who has lived at the block of flats for 20 years, said she was woken up in the early hours of Wednesday by the sounds of shattering windows.

Meyer lived on the top floor of the flats.

“My room is at the back so I just heard the sounds of windows breaking. I went outside to look for my neighbour and when I pushed her door open, the smoke had already filled her bachelor flat.

“We started knocking on doors of others to alert them about the fire. When the smoke started moving to our flat, I grabbed my three-month-old baby and four other children and rushed downstairs to my cousin.

“I couldn’t save anything because the smoke was just too much. All my personal belongings and memories burnt to ashes,” she said.

Meyer said she was heartbroken that she left everything in the blaze.

“I don’t even know how to describe it.”

She said the department of social development had offered to temporarily put up Wendy homes for displaced residents. 

City of Johannesburg emergency management services spokesperson Robert Mulaudzi confirmed that they responded to the blaze in the early hours of this morning.

Mulaudzi said no injuries were reported.

TimesLIVE