Huge fire guts South Africa Parliament. A major fire has broken out in the South African Parliament building in Cape Town.
Firefighters arrived at the building as large flames and a huge column of smoke were seen around early morning today.
The City of Cape Town Fire and Rescue Service spokesman Jermaine Carelse said that the fire started in the early hours of the morning in the third-floor offices and spread to the National Assembly chamber.
Carelse said that no people have been injured in the fire, which was reported by security guards and the Rescue Police rushed to the scene and started putting it out.
The Cape Town Mayoral committee member for safety and security, Jean-Pierre Smith, said flames had engulfed the roof of the National Assembly building.
“The fire has not been contained and reports of cracks in some walls of the building have been confirmed,” Smith said.
Minister of Public Works Patricia de Lille, however, said it wasn’t the newly built National Assembly building that had caught fire, as indicated earlier by the Cape Town city council, but the Old Assembly.
She added that the flames had been mostly brought under control and that CCTV footage was being reviewed to determine what caused the incident.
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