Police with sniffer dogs searched on Friday through the gutted remains of a Johannesburg CBD apartment block as authorities stepped up investigations into the cause of a fire that killed more than 70 people.
Only a few bodies have been moved to the Diepkloof forensic pathology services mortuary, while the remaining bodies are waiting to be transported from the Hillbrow mortuary after a fire in a CBD building claimed 74 lives on Thursday.
Pathology expert Thembalethu Mpahlaza has revealed that only 12 of the 74 bodies of Thursday's Joburg CBD fire were identifiable while the rest were burnt beyond recognition.
The death toll from a fire that engulfed a Johannesburg building rose to 76, authorities said on Friday as relatives of the victims waited outside a mortuary to identify their loved ones.
When Elisha Phafoli got a suspicious response to a call he made to his younger sister on Thursday, he knew something was wrong and, along with another sister, made the nearly 400km drive to Johannesburg to get to the bottom of the matter.