More than 70 killed in fire in South Africa’s Johannesburg

Medics and emergency workers arrive at the scene of a deadly blaze in downtown Johannesburg on August 31, 2023. Dozens died when the fire ripped through a multi-storey building in South Africa's biggest city [Jerome Delay/AP Photo]

A nighttime fire has ripped through a run-down five-storey building in Johannesburg that was occupied by squatters and homeless people, killing at least 74 people, including 12 children.

Some of the people living in a maze of shacks and other makeshift structures inside the building threw themselves out of windows on Thursday to escape the fire and might have died then, a local government official said. Seven of the victims were children, the youngest a one-year-old, according to an emergency services spokesperson.