Police arrested a suspect Monday and charged him with arson and theft in connection with the fire that ripped through South Africa's 138-year-old Parliament complex on Sunday.
A day after the fire broke out, flames leaped anew from the still-smoldering structures.
Firefighters raced to put out flames raging from the roof of the National Assembly, where South Africa's Parliament meets. An elite South African police force, known as the Hawks, has taken over the investigation centered on a 49-year-old man apprehended Sunday on the parliamentary grounds.
The suspect is expected to appear in court Thursday to face charges that include housebreaking, arson and theft.
A Hawks spokesman, Brig. Nomthandazo Mbambo, told eNCA television Monday that the suspect was "caught with suspected stolen property" and had gained "unauthorized entry" into the parliamentary complex. Police had not yet determined a motive, he said.
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Footage reviewed by police "confirmed that someone was in the building from the early hours in the morning," Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure Patricia de Lille told reporters Sunday. Someone had also "closed one of the valves" for fire sprinklers, which de Lille said accounted for why some did not go off despite having recently passed a maintenance check.
Investigations are underway into the circumstances of these security breaches, she said, as South African media outlets questioned why the complex had not been better protected.
Authorities have assembled an engineering and fire forensics team, which is expected to provide a preliminary report into the fire's cause by Friday. But because of the scorching temperatures in some of the buildings, investigators remained unable to access much of the complex, de Lille said.
Hours after the early-morning fire began, President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the scene and called it "a terrible and devastating event."
Later Sunday, Parliament released a statement saying the fire was "under complete control" in the area containing its upper house, the National Council of Provinces. But it said firefighting efforts continued in the National Assembly chamber, where some offices were "severely gutted" and other sections suffered "significant damage."
Parliament said "all efforts" will be made to "limit any disruption" of its work. De Lille said efforts were underway to set up a temporary meeting place for legislators.
The fire appeared to have started around the complex's old assembly hall and spread to the National Assembly building, Ramaphosa said. Exactly how it spread remains unclear, but Ramaphosa praised the quick response of firefighters, who he said arrived within six minutes of being alerted.
Parliament was not in session at the time.
The full extent of the damage is not known, but J.P. Smith, a Cape Town mayoral committee member responsible for safety and security, predicted that it "will be significant."
"These are valuable buildings, which we cannot afford to lose," Smith told Newzroom Afrika.
The gutted National Assembly occupies "an important place in the history and evolution of our constitutional democracy," Amos Masondo, chairperson of South Africa's National Council of Provinces, said at a news conference Monday. "Over 2,000 transformative pieces of legislation have passed" there since the end of apartheid -- South Africa's system of racial segregation.
The complex also houses some 4,000 pieces of artwork. The parliamentary library and museum, home to many pieces of art and heritage objects including the Keiskamma Tapestry, were among those saved, Masondo said.