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A former Eastern Cape landmark has been gutted by fire believed to have been started by vagrants taking shelter from the cold weather.
Buffalo City fire-fighters were called out on Tuesday morning to battle a fire which gutted parts of the derelict Amatola Sun building in Bhisho, once the crowning jewel in the former Ciskei.
Buffalo City deputy fire chief, Malcolm Galvin, says four trucks with 14 fire-fighters extinguished the blaze which began before seven in the morning.
"The entire top floor of the hotel section is gutted, the roof and everything collapsed, some of the rooms on the ground floor are still in tact and some of them are gutted. We suspect there are vagrants living on the premises the wiring has been ripped from the walls and the roofs and we suspects they were either getting cold and made a little fire" Galvin said.
