D.he National Assembly in Cape Town was completely destroyed by fire. The flames that have raged since the morning had “completely burned” the seat of the MPs, said a parliamentary spokesman for the AFP news agency on Sunday afternoon. The fire is still not under control. The cause of the huge fire, which covered the entire parliament complex in clouds of smoke, was initially unclear. For the time being, nothing was known about the injured or dead.
The fire initially broke out at the rear of the building complex that houses the Old Assembly Chamber and the National Council of the Provinces and a few hours later it spread to the building of the National Assembly, in which the parliament sits, said Patricia de Lille, the minister of the Public Works and Infrastructure Province. Video footage showed thick black columns of smoke rising from the building.
The roof of the old plenary hall had collapsed, while some walls of the government complex had large cracks, it said. The Parliament building is home to many national artifacts. It is still unclear whether these have also been damaged, said a member of the city security committee, JP Smith. According to the Cape Town ambulance service, there were no injuries. A 51-year-old man was questioned in connection with the fire, police said. The cause of the fire remained unclear on Sunday; Investigations have been initiated.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, who was still in Cape Town the day after the memorial service for the world-famous human rights activist and retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died a week ago, spoke of a devastating event. “The archbishop would have been shocked too, because this is a place that he prayed for, that he supported and saw as a refuge for our democracy,” said Ramaphosa in front of the cameras. The parliament is only a few meters away from St. George’s Cathedral, in whose mausoleum Tutu’s ashes were buried on Sunday morning. Ramaphosa attended tutu’s memorial service in the cathedral on Saturday.
Cape Town is the seat of the South African Parliament, which consists of the National Assembly and the House of Lords, while the government is based in Pretoria. In 1990 the then President Frederik de Klerk declared the end of the racist apartheid regime in the parliament in Cape Town.
A major fire on Table Mountain in Cape Town had already caused devastation in April. The fire hit several historic buildings and destroyed parts of the university library, among other things.
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