South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa has expressed deep sadness to the devastating and tragic loss of innocent lives at the Angelo Informal Settlement, in Boksburg on Wednesday.
In a statement released by the President Spokesman, while Ramaphosa described this as very sad morning, extended his heartfelt condolences to the families that have lost loved ones.
South African President has further urged investigators to get to the bottom of what may have caused this accident to avoid similar disasters in future.
It was reported that gas accident which happened on Wednesday night has claimed the lives of 17 residents of the squatter camp.
Report had it that fire and emergency services received a call around 1800 GMT on Wednesday about a gas explosion in the Angelo slum east of Johannesburg.
But on arrival they discovered it was “a gas leakage from a cylinder” containing a “poisonous gas,” emergency services spokesman William Ntladi said.
He said the cause of the incident “is alleged to be a nitrate oxide gas leakage from the cylinder used in an illegal mining activity in and around the settlement.”
“Apparently, the illegal miners used the gas to extrapolate gold out of the soil,” he said.
Gauteng Province Premier Panyaza Lesufi said investigations were under way to determine how the leak happened and what type of gas was involved.
“The scene was heartbreaking,” he said, adding that one person had died in a hospital overnight, raising the death toll to 17, while four others were in critical condition.
A spokesperson for the Disaster and Emergency Management Services in Ekurhuleni municipality, where the disaster occurred, linked it to illegal mining
When they arrived at the scene near the middle-class suburb of Boksburg, first responders found scores of people “lying all over the area, due to inhalation of this toxic gas,” Ntladi said.
Thousands of unregistered miners scavenge obsolete mines for gold under arduous and often perilous conditions.
South Africa’s commercial hub, Johannesburg, and its surrounding areas are built around mountainous dumps of soil and cavernous pits left behind by generations of mining companies that started extracting during a gold rush in the 1880s.