Blaze at South African care center kills 11, injures up to 50

Blaze at South African care center kills 11, injures up to 50

2011-06-13 07:46:18 GMT+7 (ICT)

SPRINGS, SOUTH AFRICA (BNO NEWS) -- A blaze at a care center in the South African city of Springs on early Monday morning killed at least eleven people, authorities said. Dozens more were injured.

Netcare 911 spokesman Jeffrey Wicks said the fire broke out on early Monday morning at the Struisbult Care Center in Springs, a city on the East Rand in Gauteng province. The center is home to dozens of elderly people, some of whom are mentally handicapped.

"Netcare 911 paramedics arrived at the scene to find firefighters battling the fire which had swept through a large portion of the single story structure," said Wicks. "The elderly and mentally ill were pulled from the burning building by rescue teams from the Ekhurleni Metro Fire Department."

The spokesman said at least eleven people were killed in the fire, while nearly 50 others were injured. "One woman was in a critical condition and was intubated and placed on a manual ventilator at the scene before she was transported by ambulance to the Pholosong State Hospital for the critical care that she required," Wicks said.

Most of the injured were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation and were then transported by ambulance to several medical facilities in the region. "Praiseworthy firefighters quickly brought the fire under control," Wicks said.

The cause of the deadly blaze was not immediately known. "The cause of the blaze and the series of events leading up to it remain unclear and will form the subject of a South African Police Force investigation," the spokesman said.

In August 2010, seventeen people were killed and several others were injured when a fire ripped through an old age home in Nigel, not far from the South African city of Johannesburg. More than 80 others were rescued.

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