The number of young people who have died at a makeshift nightclub in a township in South Africa\u2019s southern city of East London has risen to 20, a senior safety official said Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe number has increased to 20, three have died in hospital. But there are still two who are very critical,\u201d head of the provincial government safety department Weziwe Tikana-Gxothiwe said on local TV.<\/span><\/p>\n Earlier, the police confirmed 17 deaths at the nightclub.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe got a report about 17 (people) that died in a local tavern in Scenery Park which is based in East London,\u201d a provincial police spokesman brigadier Thembinkosi Kinana told AFP.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe are still investigating the circumstances surrounding the incident,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n He said the victims were aged between 18 and 20 years.<\/span><\/p>\n The Eastern Cape provincial community and safety department official Unathi Binqose, speaking from the scene, ruled out a stampede as cause of death.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to believe it\u2019s a stampede as there are no visible open wounds to those dead,\u201d Binqose told AFP by telephone.<\/span><\/p>\n A regional local newspaper, DispatchLive, reported \u201cbodies are lying strewn across tables, chairs and on the floor; with no obvious signs of injury\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n Unverified pictures shared on social media showed bodies with no visible signs of injuries, strewn on the floor of the club.<\/span><\/p>\n Local television showed police officers trying to calm down a crowd of parents and onlookers gathered outside the club in the city, which lies on the Indian Ocean coast, nearly 1,000 kms (620 miles) south of Johannesburg.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cParents whose children did not sleep at home are gathered here and they want to enter the tavern to look for their loved ones,\u201d said Binqose.<\/span><\/p>\n He said he understood the patrons were students \u201ccelebrating pens down, a party held after writing (high school) exams.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The number of young people who have died at a makeshift nightclub in a township in South Africa\u2019s southern city of East London has risen to 20, a senior safety official said Sunday. \u201cThe number has increased to 20, three have died in hospital. But there are still two who are very critical,\u201d head of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[472,5346,345],"class_list":["post-9295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-dead","tag-makeshift-nightclub","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9297,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9295\/revisions\/9297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}