JOHANNESBURG: South Africa was coming to grips Sunday with the full extent of the destruction and deaths caused by a Christmas Eve tanker truck explosion near Johannesburg as officials reported the death toll rising to 15.
The truck was carrying gas when it got stuck under a low-lying bridge in the town of Boksburg, on Saturday, sparking flames. As firefighters worked to extinguish the flames the tanker exploded, according to emergency services officials.
“Yesterday (Saturday), the death toll was at 10 people and now we are sitting at 15 as of this morning,” Joe Phaahla told reporters at Tambo Memorial Hospital.
A “fire bomb” from the explosion substantially damaged Tambo Memorial Hospital, located about 100 meters (110 yards) away, authorities said.
Thirty-seven people were injured, including 24 patients and 13 staff members who were in the hospital’s accident and emergency unit at the time of the blast.
They “sustained severe burns and have been diverted to neighboring hospitals,” Phaahla said.
Others were hit by shattered glass, he added, while some were hurt as they were in the parking lot or in front of the hospital.
“We send our deepest condolences for the families that lost their loved ones,” he said.
The health minister said the blast severely damaged the hospital’s accident and emergency unit and X-ray departments.
“The roof was damaged, ceilings fell, windows broken, and other equipment damaged,” Phaahla said.
On most of the hospital’s floors, windows had shattered, he added.
Several houses and vehicles were also damaged by the explosion, according to officials.
Residents who had gathered to see the burning truck fled from the explosion, some with their clothes burned off, witnesses told the News24 news website. At least 321 injured people were taken to the damaged hospital, though some were later transferred to other Johannesburg-area hospitals.
Videos on social media showed a huge fireball under the bridge, which the tanker appeared to have been too high to go under.
It was carrying 60,000 liters of LPG, which is used especially in cooking and gas stoves, and had come from the southeast of the country. It was en route to Botswana from South Africa’s Indian Ocean port of Richards Bay, said officials. Questions were being asked about why the tanker was on an indirect local route and not on a major highway.
The incident will be investigated, said Tania Campbell, the mayor of Ekurhuleni, the municipality which includes Boksburg.
Witness Jean Marie Booysen described on Saturday how she felt a “huge jolt” in the early hours of the morning, shortly after 6:30 a.m. (0430 GMT).
“I went upstairs to have my cup of tea and I saw immense flames, I thought a house was on fire.”
She said she later learned of the deaths of “two... here across the road, 16, the girl, and 25, the boy, who came and did my lawn every weekend for me.”
“A fireball in the sky,” is how resident Rolf Bjornstad described the explosion to News24.
“There was heat coming into the house. I thought of my wife, kids, and helping the affected people,” he said.
Another witness named William, who did not give his surname, said people nearby had felt the blast.
“I think I was 50 meters (164 feet) away from the scene... We did burn behind our backs,” he said.
(With AFP and AP)
South Africa counts damage, death by tanker truck explosion
https://arab.news/yfcxc
South Africa counts damage, death by tanker truck explosion
- The death toll from the explosion has risen to 15
- The incident will be investigated, authorities said
US congresswoman supports censure of colleague over comments against Arabs, Muslims
- Republican Randy Fine ‘spreading hate,’ Democrat Robin Kelly tells Arab News
- ‘Members of Congress should not be targeting Muslims for political gain’
CHICAGO: Illinois Congresswoman Robin Kelly has said she supports calls in the US House to censure Florida Congressman Randy Fine, who has repeatedly made derogatory comments about Muslims and Arabs on his official social media accounts.
Kelly, a Democrat, denounced anti-Muslim and anti-Arab statements made by Fine, a Republican, saying she expects a censure resolution to be put together by House members possibly next week.
“There’s just no room for hate. That’s just the bottom line. I’ve seen hate. It causes people to lose their lives. It causes people to not have the same opportunities as other people. It causes people to have extra stress, extra trauma. And to categorize a whole group of people is so unfair,” Kelly told Arab News.
“I come from a family with a lot of different ethnicities or cultures, and I’ve seen the damage that hate has done in categorizing any one community.
“The Islamic community is just always presented as the bad guy in the movies and on TV … Being a person of color and seeing things that even my own family have gone through, I’m just very sensitive to it.”
Last month, when a supporter of New York’s Muslim Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on social media that dogs have no place in a Muslim home, Fine wrote: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
Then on Feb. 20, Fine introduced to Congress the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act,” cosponsored by nine Republicans.
Fine has been criticized in the past for making Islamophobic and anti-Arab comments on his social medial pages.
Last May, when Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib said it was “a crime to use starvation as a weapon in Gaza,” Fine responded: “Tell your fellow Muslim terrorists to release the hostages and surrender. Until then, #StarveAway.”
During his election campaign in December 2023, in response to an anonymous poster on X who criticized delays in getting food trucks into Gaza, Fine wrote: “Stop the trucks. Let them eat rockets. There are plenty of those. #Bombsaway.”
Before running for Congress, responding to a New York Times report and photo of 67 Arab children killed by Israel, he said: “Thanks for the pic.”
Muslim groups in Florida have been complaining about Fine’s rhetoric since 2021, including after he sent a private Instagram message to a Florida Muslim saying: “Go blow yourself up!”
Kelly said she is also disturbed by the comments of Fine’s allies, citing them as a broader undercurrent of Islamophobia rising in the US.
She insisted that Islamophobia is no different than antisemitism or racism against other groups, including African Americans like herself.
Fine and Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles “are spreading hate and should be censured,” Kelly wrote on her own Facebook page this past week.
“Our country is already divided enough, members of Congress should not be targeting Muslims for political gain.”
Ogles, a cosponsor of the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act,” declared: “Muslims don’t belong in American society. Pluralism is a lie.”
Kelly, who was elected to Congress in 2013, said: “I think they should all be censured. I say to people that feel the Islamophobia, ‘Don’t get weary, don’t get lost in the chaos. That’s what they want you to do. You can’t go in your house and close the door. You have to be a voice. You can’t stay on the sidelines because this isn’t acceptable.’”
Arab News reached out to Fine for comment.
