At least 16 people, including three children, have been killed by a leak of toxic nitrate gas in South Africa, police and local government authorities said.
Emergency services initially announced as many as 24 people might be dead in an informal settlement in Boksburg, a city on the eastern outskirts of Johannesburg, but police and Gauteng Province premier Panyaza Lesufi said the number of deaths had been confirmed as 16 after a recount of the bodies.
Teams were still searching for other casualties with the bodies of the victims lying on the ground hours after the leak was reported as emergency services waited for forensic investigators and pathologists.
Emergency services spokesman William Ntladi said: “We can’t move anybody. The bodies are still where they are on the ground.”
Police said the three children killed were aged one, six and 15 with two people taken to hospital for treatment.
Mr Ntladi said a nitrate gas cylinder being kept in a shack had leaked and authorities believed it was being used by illegal miners to separate gold from dirt and rock.
Authorities did not say if the illegal miners they believed to be responsible for the gas leak were among the casualties.
Mr Lesufi tweeted videos of the dusty inside of a shack where at least four gas cylinders can be seen on metal stands with what he said was the cylinder responsible for the leak lying on the floor next to the entrance.
Illegal mining is rife in the gold-rich areas around Johannesburg, where miners go into closed off and disused mines to search for any deposits left over.
On Christmas Eve, 41 people died in Boksburg after a truck carrying liquefied petroleum gas got stuck under a bridge and exploded.
