South Africa — A fire ripped through a storage facility near the Pinetown mini-bus taxi rank on Anderson Road and Hill Street on Wednesday. Traffic enforcers have temporarily closed down the Anderson Road interchange due to the incident.

According to Blue Security’s Andreas Mathios, the Blue Security control room was inundated with calls, shortly after 2am, from the community saying that they could hear loud explosions coming from the Pinetown CBD.

“The explosions came from the illegally stored flammable liquid in the area,” Mathios said. “This made it particularly hazardous for firefighters who did not know where or when the next explosion would occur.”

However, at this stage, it is unclear how the fire started.

“Damage to the infrastructure is expected to run into hundreds of thousands of Rands,” he said.

The fire department, Metro Police and first responders are still at the taxi rank keeping an eye on the situation.

Furthermore, there have been no reports of injury or fatalities.

“There were strong wind conditions that the fire department had to deal with to fight the blaze. Some locals that lived around the minibus taxi ranks had to be evacuated. The quick response from the fire department led to the fire being contained. 

Mel Brauteseth, ethekwini Ward Councillor for Pinetown said they were at the scene on a fact-finding mission. She said commuters were badly affected on Wednesday morning. 

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