The images flooding out of riot-torn South Africa are horrifying. On Tuesday, a woman in a high-rise building apparently set alight by looters tossed her child to the hoped-for safety of a crowd far below.

Emergency workers have been attacked in several places; one medical service began transporting the injured in an armoured ambulance. In much of the central district of the port city of Durban, the police were overwhelmed and shopping malls and stores were gutted.