{"id":230740,"date":"2022-07-07T17:46:07","date_gmt":"2022-07-07T15:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/loadshedding-suspected-causing-deaths-elderly-couple\/"},"modified":"2022-07-07T17:46:07","modified_gmt":"2022-07-07T15:46:07","slug":"loadshedding-may-have-killed-khayelitsha-couple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/loadshedding-may-have-killed-khayelitsha-couple\/","title":{"rendered":"Loadshedding may have killed Khayelitsha couple"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Photo<\/a><\/p>\n

Two shacks burned down in a fire in Khayelitsha on Thursday morning. Photo: Nombulelo Damba-Hendrick<\/p>\n

A couple burnt to death in a shack fire in Blowy Informal Settlement, Khayelitsha, early on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n

Nocingephi Kani and Zolile Stuurman were sleeping when their shack caught fire.<\/p>\n

Two of their grandchildren, aged six and seven, who were in a separate bedroom, managed to escape unharmed<\/p>\n

Jermaine Carelse, the City of Cape Town\u2019s Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson, said they received a call at 12:21am informing them of the fire. Fire crews from Khayelitsha, Landsdowne, Mfuleni and Strand went to the scene.<\/p>\n

Two shacks were burning when the firefighters arrived. The fire was extinguished by 1:45am.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bodies of a man and woman were found amongst the debris and three other persons were displaced,\u201d said Carelse.<\/p>\n

Yolanda Kani, the couple\u2019s daughter, was at her sister\u2019s house when she was told of the fire by a neighbour.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe rushed here to find the shack on fire. I asked for my kids. When people told me that they were safe, I thought my parents were also safe,\u201d she said<\/p>\n

Kani said that she only found out after the fire was out that her parents were inside.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kids said the fire started inside mom\u2019s bedroom,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Kani suspects that an electric stove that was left unattended when loadshedding started caused the fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom had a stove in her bedroom that she used to keep warm. I think they slept and forgot to turn it off,\u201d said Kani.<\/p>\n

Kani said her children managed to get out of the shack but were trapped inside the yard. \u201cThey were lucky that neighbours heard them crying for help. They destroyed the yard to get them out because the gate was closed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Community leader Lemon Nkomo said firefighters were quick to respond. \u201cIt\u2019s so unfortunate that the area has a number of standpipe taps but most of them are not working,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Carelse said the scene was handed over to police.<\/p>\n

Police spokesperson Ndakhe Gwala said a case had been registered at Harare station.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two shacks burned down in a fire in Khayelitsha on Thursday morning. Photo: Nombulelo Damba-Hendrick A couple burnt to death in a shack fire in Blowy Informal Settlement, Khayelitsha, early on Thursday morning. Nocingephi Kani and Zolile Stuurman were sleeping when their shack caught fire. Two of their grandchildren, aged six and seven, who were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":230741,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-230740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/loadshedding-may-have-killed-khayelitsha-couple.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}