A witness has told the Commission of Inquiry into the Usindiso building fire in Johannesburg, that many people died after jumping out of the building from the higher-level floors.
Zabi Khumalo has been testifying at the commission into the deaths of 77 people killed during the August 2023 blaze.
Scores of others were left injured and displaced as a result.
Khumalo told the commission that after he saw people dying from jumping out of their windows, he used a washing line to climb down from the 4th floor.
“So I could tell that I wasn’t going to be able to jump, so what I did, I took a bottle and I cut the washing line and I tied it on the steel bar and I used it to go down. I realised that if it was going to be untied, it would have reached the 2nd floor and by having been there perhaps I won’t die because the guy that jumped earlier had already died.”
Related video: Last week, an alleged Usindiso arsonist abandoned bail:
