A man first threw a suitcase from his flat on the 23rd floor of the burning Kruger Park block of flats in Pretoria's city centre before he and his wife both jumped to their deaths.

From the street below, his brother had begged him not to jump.

Some bystanders compared the shocking scene with the World Trade Centre tragedy in the US in 2001, where people gripped by fear jumped from the buildings that had been hit by aircraft.

Mpho Kapela told how she saw a woman falling several storeys to her death.

"I was on the opposite side of the street at the café when I saw the woman fall. I burst into tears and stood motionless and shocked.

'You can't help'

"If I close my eyes, I see the picture over and over again," she said.

Nico Botha, who works in the area, said he was "shaken up" seeing the people jumping from the block of flats "just like at the World Trade Centre".

"Hell, it's horrible seeing something like that because you feel absolutely helpless that you can't help."

Superintendent Eugene Opperman said that, apart from the man and woman who had jumped, four other people, including a baby, had died.

Committee member arrested

It is not yet certain how the other four died.

A member of the Schubart and Kruger Park residents committee (SKPRC), Ronnie Mahlangu, was arrested about 17:00 on Tuesday on a charge of murder.

Before his arrest he said to journalists at Pretoria High Court that the blood of the people who died at Kruger Park flats was "on the hands of the mayor, the head of the city".

Louise du Plessis of Lawyers for Human Rights, acting on behalf of the SKPRC at the High Court, said they did not have more details on Mahlangu's arrest.

"We presume it is related to what happened today (the six deaths)," said Du Plessis said, according to a report by Jeanne Marié Versluis.

Johan Pieterse of the Tshwane emergency services said the fire broke out about 11:00 on Tuesday in the shafts of the Kruger Park apartment block on the corner of Schubart and Vermeulen Streets.

The police's air wing called in the help of Squadron 17 of the Swartkop air force base in Centurion and saved 13 people from the building.

A statement by executive mayor Gwen Ramokgopa of the Tshwane metro council said about 20 people were injured and several more were treated at the block for minor injuries and smoke inhalation.

The trouble started on Tuesday morning at the Schubart Park block.

Being evicted for arrears rent

Members of Tshwane metro police and the so-called Red Ants, workers in red overalls who are appointed by the justice department, entered the block of flats on Tuesday.

Along with flats in the Kruger Park block, 38 flats in Schubart Park, whose tenants' rent was in arrears, had to be vacated.

It was not known how many flats had been vacated after an interdict was obtained in Pretoria High Court on Tuesday preventing further evictions.

Opperman said post-mortems would be done on the six who died.

News24.com