A total of 21 people were injured today when the roof of a shopping centre collapsed on the outskirts of Pretoria, trapping Christmas shoppers inside.
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Witnesses said scores of shoppers were trapped inside the Kolonnade Shopping Centre in the capital's Wonderboom area, in the north of the city.
The roof on top of an ice-rink packed with schoolchildren on holiday collapsed.
Three people are in hospital with critical injuries and 18 others with serious injuries.
A spokeswoman for the mall said an eight-month-old girl briefly trapped in the rubble was rescued and is in stable condition with cuts and bruises.
About 300 police and soldiers joined the rescue effort, looking for people feared trapped beneath the rubble. Ambulances rushed to the scene along with police and military helicopters.
Witnesses say some children were bleeding badly as they were taken away on stretchers. The serious injuries included fractures, concussions and lacerations. Many were cut by shards from a shattered glass wall at the rink.
There was "a lot of dust and smoke and then people were just running and screaming, running away from where it happened," the South African Broadcasting Corporation quoted one witness as saying.
AFP