Fires kill two, leave hundreds homeless in S. Africa

Johannesburg: Two people died and almost 2,000 were left homeless when fires engulfed hundreds of shacks in three separate incidents in South Africa s...

Johannesburg: Two people died and almost 2,000 were left homeless when fires engulfed hundreds of shacks in three separate incidents in South Africa's Cape Town during the weekend, emergency services said Sunday.

Two of the fires occurred on Saturday evening and one in the early hours of Sunday morning, they said.

"An adult male and female sustained fatal burn wounds and were declared deceased by medics" at one of the informal settlements, the Cape Town's fire and rescue spokesman Jermaine Carelse said in a statement.

The biggest fire which happened around 2:30 am on Sunday engulfed over 150 shacks leaving over 1,000 people displaced in the Mfuleni settlement, some 30 kilometres (19 miles) southeast of Cape Town.

The cause of the fire is under investigation, Carelse said.