Fire strikes Site 5 twice in one week
Site 5 in Dunoon's Doornbach shanty town has been hit by a second fire in the space of a week.
The latest blaze, on Monday November 4, destroyed about 20 shacks and left more than 85 people homeless, said the City’s Disaster Risk Management spokesperson, Charlotte Powell.
The South African Social Security Agency had been asked to provide humanitarian relief, she said.
The fire happened metres away from where an earlier fire destroyed the homes of more than 200 people on Monday October 28.
Community leader Zukiswa Kobe said it had started at around 3.30pm.
Nomfundo Hanisi was at work at the time.
“I received a call from neighbours alerting me about the fire. Unfortunately we lost everything," she said.
Neighbours had broken the security gate and door of her home to rescue one of her children who had been trapped inside, she said.
The fire department was alerted at 3.30pm, and firefighters extinguished the blaze by 6pm, according to City Fire and Rescue Service spokesman Jermaine Carelse.
No injuries were reported and the cause of the fire was unknown, he said.
Meanwhile, Mpho Manka, one of the victims of the earlier fire, said she had been staying on a field with her children and was hoping a good Samaritan would give her materials to rebuild her home.
"We don't even have material to build, and there is no one who is willing to help. Some of us here, like me, are on depression medication. At night, some of us who have nowhere to go sit here at night and make fire. We don't sleep, and it's been two days now without food."
Zoleka Gwadiso, 57, who had a stroke in 2018, said life was unbearable as she had lost everything, including her ID and clinic card.
Siphokazi Mlenzana, a mother of four, said her children, aged 13, 12, 10 and 8, had lost their school uniforms and stationery at a time when they had to do end-of-year exams.
