Smoke rises from the National Assembly building of the South African Parliament in Cape Town, on Jan. 2, 2022. 
Credit: © Lyu Tianran, Xinhua/Alamy Images

South Africa’s Houses of Parliament in Cape Town caught fire on Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022. The flames started in a building next to the National Assembly and spread from there. More than 60 firefighters quickly responded to tame the flames. But the fire burned for hours. Strong winds reignited the flames on a roof on Monday, continuing the blaze into Tuesday morning.

The National Assembly chamber burned down and the roof of one building collapsed. The buildings were empty because Parliament was not in session. No one was injured.

Other parts of parliament were damaged severely by smoke and by water used to put out the fire. Offices of the African National Congress and National Freedom Party were destroyed. The buildings will not be habitable for some time. Parliament will meet in an alternative location, such as the city council chamber.

Security arrested Zandile Christmas Mafe on Sunday for starting the fire. He was charged with arson, housebreaking, theft, and possession of explosives in connection with the blaze.

South Africa’s Parliament consists of the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces. The South African Parliament meets in Cape Town, the country’s legislative capital. The National Assembly has at least 350 and no more than 400 members.

The National Council of Provinces is the upper house of South Africa’s Parliament, representing provincial interests at the national level. The National Council has 90 members.

April 16, 2019

Yesterday, on April 15, a destructive fire broke out at the famous Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. The fire, which most likely started accidentally during restoration work, destroyed the central spire and much of the cathedral’s roof. However, the main structure and the famous bell towers survived. French President Emmanuel Macron pledged that the historic symbol of France would be repaired and reopened.

Flames and smoke billow from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, on April 15, 2019. Credit: © Veronique de Viguerie, Getty Images

Notre Dame Cathedral stands on the Île de la Cité, a small island in the Seine River in the center of Paris. The Catholic cathedral is dedicated to Notre Dame, French for Our Lady (the Virgin Mary). The cathedral is one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture. A number of other cathedrals are also named Notre Dame, including those in Amiens, Chartres, and Reims, France.

Notre Dame’s steeple and central spire collapse during a destructive fire on April 15, 2019. Credit: © Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt, AFP/Getty Images

The Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris stands on the site of two earlier churches. Construction of the present building occurred from 1163 to 1250. Notre Dame was one of the first buildings to have flying buttresses (arched exterior supports). The buttresses strengthen the walls and permit the use of large stained-glass windows that allow light to enter the building. The cathedral’s main entrances are elaborately decorated with stone sculptures.

During the French Revolution in the late 1700′s, Notre Dame was heavily damaged by mobs that regarded the church as a symbol of the hated monarchy. Beginning in 1845, the French architect Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc directed extensive restorations of Notre Dame. He also added the tall central spire (destroyed in yesterday’s fire) to replace an older wooden spire that had been removed some years earlier because it had fallen into disrepair. Viollet-le-Duc was responsible for much of the cathedral’s present appearance.

December 28, 2018

On Dec. 30, 1903, 115 years ago this Sunday, a fire at the Iroquois Theater in downtown Chicago killed 602 people. The disaster was the worst theater fire and worst single-building fire in United States history. It resulted in the institution of new fire safety laws and building codes to help prevent such a disaster from ever happening again.

This photo shows the interior of Chicago’s Iroquois Theater after it was destroyed by fire on Dec. 30, 1903. Credit: Public Domain

The Iroquois Theater had opened just a month before the fire, on Nov. 23, 1903. The beautiful new theater was claimed to be “fireproof,” but many basic fire precautions were overlooked as the owners rushed to open the building for the lucrative holiday season. The giant theater—with seating for some 1,600 people plus “standing room” for hundreds more—had no fire alarms or sprinklers and emergency smoke vents above the stage were nailed shut. Exit doors opened only inward, many structures and fixtures contained oil-based paint and other highly flammable materials, and the theater’s seating levels were separated by locking gates. The lack of care and attention given to fire safety at the Iroquois Theater proved to be disastrous.

Chicago’s Iroquois Theater was open for only five weeks before it was gutted by a disastrous fire on Dec. 30, 1903. Credit: Public Domain

The Iroquois Theater presented Mr. Bluebeard, a musical comedy, to a crowd of over 1,900 people on the afternoon of Dec 30, 1903. Another 400 performers and theater workers were crowded into the basement dressing rooms and backstage areas. During the show, a floodlight over the stage exploded, setting fire to a velvet curtain. The fire quickly spread to the oil-painted wood and canvas set pieces hanging in the catwalks and soon flaming debris was falling to the stage. An actor pleaded for people to remain calm, but the audience panicked and tried to flee the theater, which was quickly filling with flames and smoke.

Unfortunately, many of the theater’s exits were locked or hidden behind curtains. Other doors were unlocked, but they only opened inward, trapping people as they were pressed from behind by more and more people. The trapped people were quickly overcome by flames and smoke. After a stagehand ran to the nearest fire station, firefighters arrived to find theater doors blocked by bodies on the inside. At last, firefighters worked their way into the theater and extinguished the flames, but the damage had been done. Hundreds of dead bodies lay in the theater, and more people died from injuries in the coming days.

Investigations into the fire found numerous violations and irresponsible building practices. In the coming months and years, new fire safety laws required unlocked, outward-opening doors in theaters as well as occupancy limits, wider aisles, exit lights, automatic sprinklers, fire alarm systems, and flame resistant scenery, props, and curtains.

October 30, 2017

In Greek mythology, the titan Prometheus shaped the first man from mud and clay, and the goddess Athena breathed life into the figure. Prometheus, then, was regarded as the creator of humanity as well as its protector.

This statue of Prometheus stands on the outskirts of Sochi, Russia. Legend says it was there in the Caucasus Mountains, at a place known as Eagle’s Rock, that Zeus bound Prometheus in “unbreakable” chains. Credit: © Shutterstock

Prometheus means forethought in Greek. In a war between his cousin titans and a newer breed of gods known as Olympians (Zeus and the gods of Mount Olympus), Prometheus had the foresight to side with the Olympians. The titans lost, but Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus (afterthought) were spared the other titans’ fate of suffering in Tartarus, a deep pit below the Earth’s surface (a version of hell).

Later, Prometheus (who was a bit of a trickster) presented Zeus with the choice of two offerings: meat disguised in an unappetizing ox stomach; or bones covered in good-looking fat. Zeus chose the one that looked better, and humans got to keep the tasty and nutritious meat for themselves. For this trick, an angry Zeus hid fire from humans. Prometheus, whose loyalties lay with his human creations, crafted a plan to restore fire to the people. Playing on the Olympians’ vanities, he distracted the gods with a prize golden fruit for “the most beautiful goddess.” As the goddesses quarreled over the fruit, Prometheus crept into the workshop of Hephaestus, the god of fire. Prometheus stole fire by hiding it in a fennel stalk. He then gave it to humans and taught them the art of metalwork.

Zeus was not pleased with Prometheus, to say the least. The king of the gods bound the people’s champion with unbreakable chains to a rock in the Caucasus Mountains. That was not punishment enough, however. Every day, an eagle devoured Prometheus’s liver, which grew back every night so the torture could be repeated. After many years, the hero Hercules killed the eagle and broke the chains, freeing Prometheus. Hercules was then rewarded with golden fruit (which did him little good).

Prometheus has been a favorite topic of artists and writers since the days of Aeschylus, a playwright of ancient Greece. Aeschylus is believed to have written a series of plays about the titan’s mischievous actions and noble suffering. The complete text of one of those plays, Prometheus Bound, survives. The ancient Roman poet Ovid included Prometheus in his masterwork, the Metamorphoses. In more recent times, the titan stars in the lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound by Percy Bysshe Shelley and in The Creatures of Prometheus, Ludwig van Beethoven’s only ballet. Shelley’s wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, gave the titan his most famous mention in the horror classic, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus.

July 20, 2017

Last month, on June 14, a fire destroyed much of Grenfell Tower, a 24-story apartment building in London, England. The fire, which took place in the city’s Kensington district, killed at least 80 people—the deadliest fire in London since World War II (1939-1945). The tragedy devastated many families and brought harsh criticism on local and national government as well as London’s fire safety laws and emergency response management.

The Grenfell Tower burns out of control as firefighters hose the building’s lower floors early on June 14, 2017, in London, England. Credit: Natalie Oxford (licensed under C BY 4.0)

The Grenfell fire started around midnight in a malfunctioning refrigerator freezer on the building’s fourth floor. That small fire ignited the building’s exterior cladding, a protective layer on the outside of the building’s structure. In this case, the cladding consisted of aluminum plates with a polyethylene core and polyisocyanurate insulation. Polyethylene and polyisocyanurate are types of plastic. The flammable cladding accelerated the fire, which quickly engulfed the building’s upper stories. The cladding—which also released deadly cyanide fumes—was blamed for the fire’s rapid outside-in path that trapped so many people, leading to the terrible death toll (people died from cyanide fumes as well as from flames and smoke). The fire burned intensely for many hours, and was not completely extinguished until June 16.

Some 250 firefighters responded to the Grenfell Tower fire, and they were credited with rescuing 65 people. Riot police worked alongside the firefighters, using their shields to protect firefighters from cascades of burning debris. Other police helped firefighters break down doors into locked apartments. Many people remained trapped in the building, however, as intense heat, flames, smoke, and toxic fumes continually forced rescuers to slow or alter their advance. Eighty people are known to have died in the fire. However, full analysis of remains will not be completed for some time, and the death toll is likely to rise.

This photo shows a devastated corner apartment in the burned-out Grenfell Tower on June 18, 2017. Credit: London Metropolitan Police

Grenfelll Tower was constructed in 1974. It had 129 apartments and space for some 600 residents. Grenfell had just one entrance and one staircase, and residents often complained that this could be a problem in an emergency evacuation. British regulations, however, require just one staircase in a building of that size, unlike rules in most countries that require two. Residents also complained of exposed natural gas pipes in the building, and the installation of fire-retardant boxing around the pipes had begun but was not yet completed at the time of the fire. (Several gas lines burst during the fire, which worsened the situation.)

In 2015 and 2016, Grenfell Tower—which also lacked a sprinkler system—was renovated and the new cladding was added to improve the tower’s exterior appearance. Fireproof zinc cladding was passed over in favor of much cheaper aluminum cladding. After the fire, the cladding used at Grenfell—which has long been banned on high-rise buildings in the United States and other countries—failed fire safety tests. The cladding was then banned in the United Kingdom and is in the process of being removed and replaced in hundreds of buildings throughout the country.

The local Kensington council was blamed for ignoring safety complaints from Grenfell, which was populated by largely poor, immigrant, and ethnic-minority tenants in an otherwise affluent area. The British government was blamed for deregulating the building industry and for cutting funding for fire prevention, as well as for its slow response in helping survivors of the fire. A public inquiry into the fire is scheduled to begin in September.

January 7, 2014

Australia experienced its hottest year on record in 2013, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology reported at the beginning of the year. Temperatures were 2.16 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius) above the long-term average, the warmest year since record keeping was begun in Australia in 1910. The world’s driest continent also had its hottest day, hottest month, hottest winter’s day, and hottest summer in 2013. The record-warm winter culminated in a series of devastating fires in and around Sydney, Australia’s largest city. The hotter-than-normal temperatures, which began late in 2012, were so extreme that the Bureau of Meteorology was forced to change its official weather forecasting map to include two new colors—deep purple and pink—to show areas with temperatures above 122 °F (50 °C).

According to the bureau, all but one of the last 10 years have been warmer than average. “The Australian region warming is very similar to that seen at the global scale, and the past year emphasizes that the warming trend continues,” concluded the authors of the bureau’s annual report. “Most of the warming has occurred since around 1950, and that’s consistent with the global pattern,” bureau meteorologist Neil Plummer stated in an Australian Broadcasting Company interview. He noted that figures from the Australian bureau, and other bureaus around the word, provide a “body of evidence that we’re all seeing a warming over Australia and a warming world.”

Australia is the driest continent. Its vast interior, often called the outback, consists mainly of deserts, such as the Great Victoria Desert (above), and dry grasslands. (© Peter Mead, Tom Stack & Associates)

Concurrently, a study by Australian scientists published in the journal Nature found that increasing levels of carbon dioxide are reducing the thickness of clouds over the oceans, which will, in turn, reduce their cooling impact. The scientists predicted that this effect will cause global temperature to rise by at least 5.6 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) by the end of this century–shockingly higher than an earlier calculation of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius).

Additional World Book articles:

• Bushfires in Australia
• Australia 2009 (a Back in Time article)
• Global warming 2012 (a Back in Time article)
• The Great Meltdown (a special report)
• Meltdown: Climate Change in the Arctic (a special report)

May 9, 2013

Another tragedy struck the garment district of the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka last night.  Eight people were holding an after-hours meeting in a garment factory when a fire broke out. All eight people died in the fire, having been overcome by toxic smoke from burning acrylic fabric.

Garment workers at a factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh (© Liba Taylor, Panos Pictures)

Fabric and the lint it creates are both highly flammable. A fire in a garment factory has a tremendous amount of fuel and can burn through the structure very quickly.  Such fires are even more deadly when unsafe industrial practices are followed. Escape doors are often locked to prevent young workers from leaving the factory, or stairways are blocked with garments.  Such was the case in the deadly fire that killed 112 Bangladeshi workers in 2012.  Similar problems led to the deaths of 260 Pakistani workers in factory fires in Karachi and Lahore in 2012.

The latest fire in Bangladesh comes as bodies are still being recovered from the collapse of an eight-story garment factory in Dhaka. The collapse, on April 24, occurred in a factory loft that had had three illegal stories added to a five-story building. The day before the building collapsed, large cracks appeared in the structure. The owner and manager opened the factory the next day despite these structural problems. When large generators came on during a power outage at the factory, the vibration caused the factory to collapse. Two weeks later, the death count from the factory has risen to more than 900 people, making the Dhaka collapse the most deadly accident to ever occur in the garment-trade industry.

Since the collapse, the Bangladeshi government has closed 18 garment factories for failing to meet work and safety standards. The country pledged to inspect every factory in Bangladesh as part of a safety initiative. Much of the clothing made in Bangladesh is exported to Western Europe and North America, so Western brands that were manufacturing their clothing in Bangladesh are feeling pressure to become more active concerning industrial safety on behalf of the workers who make their fashion.

Other World Book Articles:

• Bangladesh 2012 (Back in Time article)
• International trade
• Safety
• Sweatshop
• Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

May 6, 2013

The number of people killed in the collapse of an eight-story building in Bangladesh has grown from more than 100 to at least 650. The building, which housed multiple garment factories and thousands of workers, collapsed on April 24 in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka. More than 1,000 of the estimated 3,000 people working in the industrial loft were injured. Authorities stated that the number of people confirmed as dead was 433, with 149 people still missing, likely still trapped under the rubble.

Women working in an apparel factory in Dhaka. (© Liba Taylor, Panos Pictures)

Initial reports stated that the owners of the five factories in the building ignored a police order on April 23 to evacuate after deep cracks in the walls were detected. Later reports stated that the building’s owner, Mohammed Sohel Rana, had told tenants the building was still safe. Rana, now perhaps the most hated man in Bangladesh, had been on the run after the tragedy, but he was found near the Indian border and helicoptered back to Dhaka. He has been arrested and is expected to be charged with negligence and illegal construction—Rana had no permit to add the top three floors to the structure.

Clothing is the leading export for Bangladesh—apparel exports in 2012 totaled around $18 billion. Bangladesh is second only to China in apparel exports. Many of the clothing exports from Bangladesh are for western retailers, including Walmart and Gap. Costs of manufacturing garments in Bangladesh are dramatically lower, but western companies can become associated with tragedies like the one in Dhaka last week and sully their reputation.

The lower costs of garments made in Bangladesh is directly related to labor. Bangladesh has some of the lowest wages in the world. When the newly elected pope, Francis, learned this week that many of the workers in Bangladesh earn only about $40 a month, he claimed “This is slave labor.” In addition to low wages, the country has very lax regulations for working conditions. Six month before the factory collapse, more than 100 people died in a fire that swept through a garment factory in Dhaka.

Additional World Book articles:

• Labor movement

• Sweatshop

January 29, 2013

French and Malian troops entered the fabled city of Timbuktu on January 27, only to find that retreating Islamist insurgents had torched a library containing thousands of priceless historic manuscripts. The city’s mayor describes that act as a “devastating blow” to world heritage. From the 1300′s to the 1600′s, Timbuktu was one of the richest commercial cities of Africa and a center of Islamic learning.

The government of French President François Hollande announced on January 12 that it was sending troops into Mali to help wrest the nation back from Islamic jihadist expansion. (Mali was once a French colony.) Some 1,900 African troops–including soldiers from Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo–are being deployed to Mali as part of a United Nations-backed African intervention force to drive the insurgents northwards into the desert and mountains. The United Kingdom is supplying planes to transport troops and material.

World Book map; map data © MapQuest.com, Inc.

The rebels gained control of much of the north in 2012 after a military coup in Mali’s capital, Bamako, created a power vacuum. At the core of the Islamist insurgency are the remnants of a now-defunct Algerian rebel group that was largely driven out of Algeria and into the unpoliced desert land in northern Mali sometime after the Algerian civil war was settled in 1999. A loose alliance of Algerian and Mauritanian fighters, they are believed to be connected to an al-Qa’ida offshoot known as “al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb.” (Maghreb refers to northern Africa west of Egypt). The group aims to overthrow the Algerian government and institute an Islamic state under Shar’iah law. The group operates in Algeria, Mauritania, Niger, and other ungoverned areas of the Sahel region. The insurgents are known for their extreme cruelty and barbarity. Since seizing the northern half of Mali, they have destroyed a number of historic and religious landmarks in Timbuktu, claiming the landmarks are idolatrous. Any behavior deemed an affront to their interpretation of Islam has been zealously punished. They also actively recruit children for armed conflict.

Timbuktu contains a number of historically important structures, including the Sankore Mosque (above). While holding Timbuktu, Islamist rebels damaged or destroyed structures on the grounds that they were idolatrous. Before leaving the city, they torched a library that contained priceless manuscripts, some dating to the 1100's. ((c) Aldona Sabalis, Photo Researchers)

Additional World Book articles:

• Algeria 1991 (a Back in Time article)
• Algeria 1992 (a Back in Time article)
• Algeria 1999 (a Back in Time article)

October 31, 2012

President Barack Obama, who has put campaigning on hold, accompanied New Jersey Governor Chris Christie today on a tour of areas of the Jersey Shore devastated by Hurricane Sandy. The storm made landfall on the night of October 29 along the New Jersey coast near the resort of Atlantic City. A storm surge flooded much of the city and tore up parts of the famed boardwalk. Governor Christie described the damage to the Jersey Shore as “incalculable,” and President Barack Obama declared a federal disaster area in eight New Jersey counties as well as in New York City and Long Island. Governor Christie, a Republican who supports Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has gone out of his way to praise President Obama for his handling of the storm. “I spoke to the president three times yesterday,” he said during a televised interview. “He’s been incredibly supportive and helpful to our state and not once did he bring up the election.”

The death toll from the storm has been raised to at least 80, including 37 people in New York State. At least 8 million households and businesses remain without electric power, the U.S. Department of Energy announced today.

A fire fueled by high winds from Hurricane Sandy burned more than 100 houses in the New York City borough of Queens. Sections of Staten Island remain flooded. (World Book map)

In New York City, the storm flooded seven subway tunnels under the East River in what the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority characterized as the single most destructive disaster in the 108-year history of the subway system. Although parts of the system are running on a limited basis, rails and electrical equipment in the flooded tunnels will have to be cleaned before the entire network can reopen, which could take weeks.

The storm toppled thousands of trees in New York City and sparked numerous fires. Driven by the hurricane-force winds, one fire burned more than 100 houses in the borough of Queens. In Manhattan, flooding topped the sea wall in the financial district and triggered an explosion in a Consolidated Edison generating plant, cutting electric power to much of the island below mid-town. The area remains in the dark. However, the New York Stock Exchange reopened today, running on generator power, after being closed for two days. The last time the stock exchange shut down for so long because of the weather was during the Great Blizzard of 1888.

With offices reopening and the subway hobbled, many commuters drove into the city, creating massive gridlock. Drivers reported delays of hours, with cars and taxis lined up at major crossings and the entrances to reopened bridges and tunnels.

The famed Boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, suffered major damage as a storm surge caused by Hurricane Sandy devastated beaches on the Jersey Shore. (© age fotostock/SuperStock)

As Sandy moved inland, it collided with two other weather systems, including a burst of cold air sweeping down through the Canadian Plains. The combined storm brought high winds, freezing rains, and heavy snows to parts of West Virginia. In Pennsylvania, it caused power outages and flooding and forced numerous closures of roads, schools, and businesses. The storm left at least seven people dead in Pennsylvania and five dead in West Virginia.

Additional World Book articles:

• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
• The Forecast: Better Weather Prediction Ahead (a special report)
• How the Ocean Affects Climate (a special report)