Toxic gas leak in South Africa kills 16, including 3 children

Police stand near the site of the gas leak. Photo / AP

At least 16 people, including three children, died in a toxic gas leak in South Africa yesterday.

Emergency services said that as many as 24 people died.

It wasn’t immediately clear why there was a discrepancy in the death toll.

Search and rescue teams were still working through the area trying to ascertain the extent of the casualties.

The gas leak happened in an informal settlement in the city of Boksburg on the eastern outskirts of Johannesburg, the South African Police Services said.

Police said the three children killed were aged 1, 6 and 15. Two people were taken to the hospital, police said.

Boksburg is where 41 people died after a truck carrying gas got stuck under a bridge and exploded on Christmas Eve.

Emergency services spokesman William Ntladi said that deaths were caused by a leak from a gas cylinder in a shack in the Angelo settlement. He said the leak had stopped and teams were searching a 100-metre radius around the cylinder to check for more casualties.

The bodies were still lying on the ground “in and around the area”, Ntladi said, and forensic investigators and pathologists were on their way.

A body lies covered in the Angelo settlement. Photo / AP

“We can’t move anybody,” Ntladi said.

Ntladi said initial information indicated the cylinder was being used by illegal miners to process gold inside a shack.

Illegal mining is rife in the gold-rich areas around Johannesburg, where miners go into closed-off and disused mines to search for left-over deposits.

- AP