Reuters
South African authorities said on Friday around 1,600 chemicals were stored at a warehouse of India's UPL Ltd when it was razed during violent looting last week, causing potentially harmful air emissions and a greenish-tinged effluent to seep into a protected lagoon. The warehouse was one of hundreds of businesses attacked and looted in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and Gauteng provinces in some of the worst violence in the post-apartheid era, sparked by the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma on July 7 for contempt of court. First noticed in the early hours of July 13, the fire was only completely doused by 5 p.m. local time (1500 GMT) on Thursday, July 22, officials at KwaZulu-Natal's environmental affairs department said, as tonnes of dead fish were collected in the vicinity of Umhlanga lagoon and beach.
