As firemen battled to extinguish the last remnants of the flames, South African police said they had charged a man with arson in connection with a fire that caused major damage to the national parliament building in Cape Town.
The fire broke out early on Sunday inside the parliamentary complex, which contains the National Assembly, or Lower House of Parliament, and some of it goes back to 1884.
It caused the roof of a section of the facility housing the upper chamber, or National Council of Provinces (NCOP), to fall on Sunday, gutting an entire floor, though no one was injured in the disaster.
An elite police squad known as the Hawks said in a statement that a 49-year-old suspect arrested in connection with the blaze is likely to appear in court on Tuesday and would face accusations of housebreaking and theft as well as arson.
“It is alleged that he entered through a window in one of the offices,” Hawks spokesperson Nomthandazo Mbambo told eNCA television, adding that investigations into how the suspect evaded security at the parliament were still ongoing.
“There’s a chance that more costs will be applied because there was a security breach here,” Mbambo stated.
‘THE SMOULDERING CONTINUES’
On Monday, firemen were still dealing with “hotspots on the 4th floor of the National Assembly, which is still smoldering,” according to Jean-Pierre Smith, a member of the Cape Town municipal committee responsible for safety and security.
“A lot of books and bookcases are smoldering,” he claimed, adding that fire, water, heat, and smoke had completely devastated the interior of the National Assembly.
The National Assembly is housed in the New Wing, which was the most severely damaged by the fire. The fire in the Old Wing was put out more swiftly on Sunday, according to legislative authorities.
