The Western Cape Legislature's Standing Committee on Infrastructure recently received a detailed and sobering account of the George building collapse, shedding light on the systemic failures that contributed to the tragedy and the immense human cost of the disaster.
The incident, which occurred on May 6, 2024, saw a multi-storey building under construction on Victoria Street collapse in what responders described as a rare "pancake collapse," where floors fall directly atop one another. The disaster claimed the lives of 34 people and injured many more.
Speaking at a recent briefing, Head of Disaster Management for the Garden Route District Municipality, Gerard Otto, shared the agonising realities of the response operation. "I don't think anything fully prepares you for an incident like this. Having the plan just makes the gap less of what you didn't plan for and what you've got planned."
The rescue operation, which lasted for a gruelling 260 hours (from May 6th to May 17th), involved combing through the rubble in search of survivors among the 62 confirmed victims. The scale of the tragedy was compounded by the fact that the majority of the victims were foreign nationals.
"Only 16 of the deceased were South African citizens. The rest were Mozambican, Zimbabwean, Malawian, Lesotho nationals, some undocumented," Otto revealed, highlighting the devastating impact on migrant communities.
Amidst the despair, one remarkable moment offered a glimmer of hope. 118 hours into the rescue, Gabriel Gumba was pulled from the rubble virtually unharmed. "That lifted the spirit to say, 'Okay, let's carry on, let's do even more,'" said Otto, underscoring the resilience and determination of the rescue teams.
The response involved more than a thousand personnel and volunteers, including specialised rescue technicians, emergency medical teams, construction workers, and canine units. The operation was coordinated through a Multi-Agency Centre (MAC), which implemented triage colour-coding, acoustic detection devices, and forensic identification methods, including tattoos and social media photos. NGOs, churches, and the Department of Social Development also offered support to grieving families and rescue workers alike. "This was not just a government response, it was a whole-of-society approach," Otto emphasised.
However, the operation faced significant logistical and emotional challenges. Response equipment had to be transported from Worcester, resulting in delays of up to five hours for critical tools. Additionally, language barriers complicated the provision of psychosocial support for victims, while inaccurate or missing records from contractors made it nearly impossible to track the workers involved.
George Municipality Fire Chief Neels Barnard described the moment he reached the scene. "Was it just a structural collapse of one wall? Or was it the whole building? It's only when you reach the disaster site that you can see what has really happened. Even in the Western Cape, we have never experienced a tragedy of this scale before," said Barnard, highlighting the unprecedented nature of the disaster.
Officials also credited past disaster experiences, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2017 Knysna fires, for helping establish functional cluster systems. "Everyone knew their roles," Otto added. "That intergovernmental coordination saved lives."
While the immediate aftermath of the collapse focused on rescue and recovery, attention has now turned to understanding the root causes of the tragedy. A report by the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) has revealed alarming failures in the regulatory processes that should have prevented the disaster.
Minister of Human Settlements Thembi Simelane presented the NHBRC report to the Portfolio Committee on Human Settlements, describing it as a "very sad report" that showed glaring internal regulatory lapses at the council. "It's a report which indicates the failure of our systems at the NHBRC," Simelane stated.
The report indicates that the contractor, Liatel Developments, under director Theuns Kruger, "cut corners" and that the NHBRC's system "enabled him to cut corners by not following our standard operating procedures, and even approving without the fulfilment of all the necessary attachments that needed to be done."
According to Simelane, the building was originally registered with the council as a single-storey development. However, at the stage of enrolling the building with the NHBRC, the project was changed to a multi-storey development. Despite this significant change, officials at the NHBRC failed to undertake a proper technical assessment to ensure the contractor could manage the expanded scope of the project.
"At the municipal level and at NHBRC, the building was only listed on paper as a single-storey building, not a complex project, which is a multi-storey building," she explained. "Ordinarily, to approve a one-storey building and a multi-storey building the intricacies are different, and the financials which need to be attached to a multi-storey are different."
Simelane also revealed that the enrolment of the building project with the council only took place after construction at the site had commenced, a clear violation of protocol.
The NHBRC report concluded that the "real cause of the collapse is articulated in the report as processes that were not followed in terms of the proper registration of the building, and to ensure that the structure of a single-storey to multiple storey desirably had the strength of carrying that building."
In response to the findings, three officials at the NHBRC who were implicated in the regulatory failures have been referred for disciplinary action. Furthermore, the contractor Liatel Developments, as well as certain implicated NHBRC officials, have been referred to the South African Police Service for criminal investigation.
The NHBRC report has recommended an improvement of the technical system used to approve buildings, a measure that Minister Simelane has vowed to implement.
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