Errol Chetty, a manager at Furniture City at Festival Mall in Kempton Park, was having his usual morning coffee at Mugg & Bean when he heard a bang.
Then flames flew out of the kitchen, and the kitchen staff, some of whom were badly burnt, came running out, prompting Chetty to run for cover on Thursday morning.
But the ceiling suddenly caved in, and when he ran to the door, he found it blocked by rubble. Ceiling boards falling from the roof hit him on the head and he fell.
“I was unconscious for about 15 seconds and I remember someone pulling me from under the rubble.”
After being pulled out, Chetty and his rescuer went to another side of the store and pushed the door, thinking it was a fire escape. It was not. They were trapped inside.
Nearby, Wimpy franchisee John-John Jansen van Vuuren heard the blast.
He thought someone must have fallen off the roof, and ran out to investigate.
He saw smoke coming from the store, the ceiling collapsing and Mugg & Bean screaming staff running, tripping and falling over the rubble as they tried to escape. Other people were on the side of the store, trapped inside.
Jansen van Vuuren took the concrete umbrella support and hurled it at the door to break it, pulling out Chetty and the other people.
“The concrete support was heavy, but at (times like these) one becomes strong. Some people were injured and one lady had sustained serious burn injuries to her face. Parts of her hair had fallen out after being burnt,” Jansen van Vuuren recalled.
He sent his first aid official to the scene to assist and also helped pull others from inside to safety.
Thirteen injured people were rushed to the nearby Arwyp Medical Centre.
While earlier reports said there were no patrons in the store at the time, Chetty said he was there. There had been two other patrons, who left shortly before the explosion.
Investigators had not determined the cause of the blast by last night, but it is suspected a fault within the gas line had led to the explosion.
Graeme Morrison, a representative of Famous Brands, under which Mugg & Bean falls, said he believed the explosion happened as a result of something going wrong with the gas supply.
Morrison said there were no gas cylinders in the store, as the centre supplies all the shops with gas from a central point at Festival Mall.
- The Star
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