The Daily Vox
On the morning of 18 April 2021, a fire started near Rhodes Memorial, Devil’s Peak in Table Mountain National Park. Driven by strong winds, it reached the University of Cape Town?s (UCT) Rondebosch campus. The building worst affected by the fire was the Jagger Reading Room, which was home to the significant African Studies Collection, which was started in 1953.
The full extent of the loss is not known. The images weâve seen give us some idea of the devastation. The executive director of the UCT Libraries, Ujala Satgoor has confirmed that the reading room of the Jagger Library is âguttedâ but luckily the fire detection system in place triggered the fire shutters which prevented the spread of the fire to other parts of the library.Â
A blaze advanced along South Africa s iconic Table Mountain toward central Cape Town on Monday after ravaging university buildings, while firefighters battled strong winds in their efforts to control it and officials evacuated residential areas.
The fire broke out Sunday morning in the foothills of the mountain and spread to the University of Cape Town (UCT), destroying buildings and part of a library housing a unique collection of African archives, while causing students to flee.
The blaze had been largely contained on Monday, but firefighters were still battling to control it.
Cape Town mayor Dan Plato said efforts were currently focused on the mountain above the Vredehoek suburb, with residents being evacuated as a precautionary measure .
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The University of Cape Town’s Jagger Library, which housed thousands of theses, artworks, and precious documents, has been gutted. (Photo: Ashraf Hendricks)
On Sunday 18 April 2021, a massive fire made its way through the Rhodes Memorial, spreading down to the University of Cape Town.
One of the affected areas is the Reading Room of the UCT Libraries’s Jagger Library.
Below is the aftermath in pictures.
The burning of the University of Cape Town’s J.W. Jagger Library on 18 April could be one of South Africa’s greatest losses of memory.
Many of the most precious records housed at the building may have been protected at lower levels by the library’s fire doors, but huge collections of literature and records may have been destroyed.