Sowetan: Women’s Day blaze biggest

Mike Sutcliffe needs to be educated, by mass action, to understand that shack dwellers need electricity immediately and decent housing very soon and not education on fire safety. We are poor, not stupid. Nomsa Dube is lying when she says that Kennedy Road residents were offered houses and refused them.

Click here to read ‘A Big Devil in the Jondolos: A report on Shack Fires’ by Matt Birkinshaw (2008).

http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2010/08/11/women_s-day-blaze-biggest

Women’s Day blaze biggest

WHILE scores of women around the country celebrated Women’s Day on Monday, women at the Kennedy Road Informal Settlement in Durban were struggling to rebuild their homes after yet another fire wreaked havoc.

The vast shackland, home to thousands of people, has become synonymous with raging infernos. The Women’s Day fire that ravaged more than 650 shacks was the sixth at the informal settlement this year alone.

A candle left burning in one shack is suspected to have caused the blaze that quickly spread throughout the settlement. Abahlali baseMjondolo (Shack Dwellers) Movement continues to blame city bosses for the devastating fires.

“This is the biggest fire we’ve had here. People were left destitute by the July fire – this one was even worse. To say that shack dwellers are careless because they leave candles burning is nonsense.

“People who have electricity also leave lights on but because they have electricity, they do not lose their lives or their belongings,” Abahlali baseMjondolo spokesperson Mnikelo Ndabankulu said.

The Kennedy Road shack dwellers have been demanding houses from the city for more than 20 years.

In July, KwaZulu-Natal local government MEC Nomusa Dube said the residents refused formal houses offered them in Riverdene, Newlands East and Mount Moriah.

Durban city manager Michael Sutcliffe said the municipality sympathised with the victims of the disaster. He admitted that it was “not the first fire in as many months in this area”.

“Obviously the long-term solution to these disasters is the provision of proper housing. The city is doing everything to increase the rate of housing provision.

“The present backlog in housing provision will take between 10 and 20 years to eradicate.

“In the meantime, we will continue our efforts to educate our people about fire safety,” Sutcliffe said.

Meanwhile, two other fires raged in Durban yesterday – one at a law firm in Cowey Road and the other at a flat in Percy Osborne Road.

The blaze that gutted the law firm brought peak morning traffic to a standstill as traffic authorities were forced to close the busy road.

Netcare 911’s Jeff Wicks says both fires broke out early yesterday morning.

No one was injured in both city fires.