“At first I thought they were emptying the bottle bank on our square here,” says a local resident. “But that was a strange time.” The fire at the curtain shop broke out last night around half past two, after an explosive device went off at the store.
Emergency services responded en masse to extinguish the fire. The flames from the store eventually spread to the houses above, after which the fire brigade decided to evacuate the entire building. Two residents were checked at the scene by ambulance personnel, and one person was taken to hospital due to smoke inhalation.
Residents sheltered in a pub
The residents of houses were temporarily sheltered in the Tapzuid café. “Around half past four there were people here in socks and a lot of cats,” Joppe van de Louw explains. The manager of Tapzuid decided to open his business to the affected residents when he heard that a fire had broken out in the curtain shop next to him.
