The blaze, one of the worst residential ones in South Africa’s history, occurred in a building that officials and locals say had become an overcrowded death trap for the hundreds who lived there.
Families on Friday were trying to identify relatives caught in the blaze, a day after it consumed a sprawling settlement in one of the deadliest residential fires in South African history.
Johannesburg, with a severe shortage of affordable housing, has hundreds of illegally occupied derelict buildings that officials and housing advocates say have become firetraps.
The early-morning blaze tore through a five-story building that had become a sprawling informal settlement, officials said. The cause was not yet known.