CAPE TOWN (AFP) – A fire that ravaged part of South Africa’s Parliament, engulfing the National Assembly and threatening national treasures, has been brought under control, firefighters said yesterday, as police charged a suspect with starting the blaze.

Flames broke out early Sunday in the oldest wing of the Cape Town complex, triggering an inferno that crews battled throughout the day.

“The fire was brought under control during the night,” spokesman Jermaine Carelse said, adding that teams were still extinguishing flames in the historic wood-panelled part of the building where it had begun.

“The most damage is in the National Assembly building,” Carelse said. “That won’t be used for months.”

Earlier, Parliament spokesman Moloto Mothapo said the roof of the assembly had collapsed and the fire was “so intense” in that part of the building that firefighters had been forced to withdraw.

“The entire chamber where the members sit… has burned down,” he said.

No casualties were reported.

President Cyril Ramaphosa told reporters at the scene on Sunday that a man had been held and that the building’s sprinkler systems had apparently failed.

Police said yesterday that they had charged a 49-year-old man whom they had detained inside Parliament a day earlier.

The man, due to appear in court today, has been accused of “housebreaking, arson” and damaging state property, The Hawks elite police unit said.

The Parliament’s presiding officers met yesterday with Public Works Minister Patricia de Lille to take stock of the devastation.

BRASILIA (AP) — Passengers on the cruise ship MSC Preziosa had to wait more than six hours to disembark at Rio de Janeiro on Sunday due to an inspection by Brazilian health authorities that confirmed 28 cases of COVID-19 on board – 26 passengers and two crew members.

Rio’s health secretariat said in a statement that among those who tested positive, people living in Rio or the nearby region can quarantine themselves at home. Others must first isolate in hotels, and there was no information provided about who would pay for the
costs.

After the inspection, MSC Preziosa was authorised by federal health regulator Anvisa to continue operating. Other passengers were waiting to embark for Bahia. The ship had set out from the Brazilian resort of Búzios.

In a statement to the Associated Press, MSC said it applies “protocols that are stricter and stronger than in any other travel industry”, adding that only vaccinated people are allowed to board, and that it conducts regular tests on passengers and crew members.

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – One person has been found and two are still feared dead following a devastating Colorado wildfire that wiped out swaths of several towns and forced thousands of people to flee with little notice, officials said on Sunday.

Of three reported missing “one of those persons has been accounted for alive and well”, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle told journalists, adding that a search was ongoing for the remaining two.

Hot debris that has been covered by snow has however hampered recovery efforts, he said.

The so-called Marshall Fire, which was sparked in a tinder-dry landscape, was fanned by winds gusting at more than 160 kilometers an hour on Thursday.

As the blaze raced through the towns of Superior and Louisville, just outside the state’s biggest city Denver, tens of thousands of people were forced to flee with little notice.

Shocking aerial footage showed whole streets as little more than piles of smoking ash, destruction that appeared almost total but somehow left a few homes oddly untouched.

The cause of the blaze is still under investigation, with a search warrant in one location announced on Saturday.

“There’s no news yet on the ongoing investigation into the source of the fire,” Colorado Governor Jared Polis told CNN on Sunday. “It’s being done professionally in conjunction with the FBI, with forensic expertise around it.”