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t least 73 people have died - including seven children - in a Johannesburg building fire.

More than 50 others were injured.

Officials say it is unclear what sparked the blaze at the city centre five-storey building, which had been abandoned but was being occupied by homeless people.

The city of Johannesburg confirmed in a news conference that it owned the building but said cartels had taken it over.

A spokesman for the emergency services, Robert Mulaudzi, told the BBC that firefighters had been able to bring out some of the occupants.

He said the fire had gutted the building, and that the search for other victims was continuing.

Speaking separately to Newzroom Afrika, Mr Mulaudzi said that the youngest of the seven children who died was 18 months old.

Disaster management officials are also in the area to help provide relief for surviving residents.

The site of the fire in Johannesburg, which left 73 people dead at last count on Thursday, started out as the Central Pass Office, which rigidly controlled the movement of black people in the city during the apartheid era.

Eighty Albert Street, on the corner of Delvers Street, had many iterations and was once the Usindiso Ministries Women's Shelter.

But when the flames and smoke swirled through the floors on Thursday morning, it was a City-owned shell containing shacks built on filthy floors with no formal services.

The building was opened in 1954 as the "Non-European Affairs Department", and its function was to administer the tightening iron grip the apartheid government had on the way black people were allowed to move and work in Johannesburg.