In South Africa's coastal city of Cape Town, about 20 teenage girls have been rescued from a fire which swept through an Islamic boarding school, local media report.

Residents helped rescue the girls from classrooms at the Rahmaniyeh school on Wednesday, the reports add.

"Those girls were terrified…They were crying and shouting... The fire was too big… I just took them out of that place," a rescuer told the privately owned eNCA broadcaster.

“The city's fire and rescue services responded to the blaze on Wednesday afternoon”.

It's not yet clear what caused the fire.