2023-09-13 13:47:00
Hanoi, Vietnam | Dozens of people died in a fire in an apartment building in the capital Hanoi in Vietnam, the official press reported this Wednesday, which stated that at least three children were among the victims.
More than fifty people were taken to hospital, including “dozens dead,” according to the official Vietnam News Agency.
“It is a very serious fire,” said the same source, according to which the relief services managed to rescue 70 people trapped by the flames.
At least three children died, said Viettimes, another official media.
The fire was put out and rescue teams continued searching for bodies and possible survivors.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh ordered an investigation.
The communist leader headed to the scene of the accident, making his way through the burned-out motorcycles. He then went to a city hospital to visit victims.
It could be one of the deadliest fires in recent years in Vietnam, a Southeast Asian country often involved in controversies over non-respect for basic safety rules.
The incident occurred in a parking lot located in the basement of the building shortly before midnight (5:00 p.m. GMT), witnesses said.
“Between life and death”
“We were sleeping when we suddenly felt very hot because there was no more electricity,” Nguyen Thi Minh Hong, a survivor treated at a Hanoi hospital, told AFP.
“I was so scared. We stayed inside the room for five hours,” explained this 34-year-old woman who lives on the seventh floor of the building. “I tried to calm my (two) children by putting a wet towel on their faces,” she added.
“We were between life and death,” he said.
Videos broadcast by local media showed the extent of the fire that spread throughout a large part of the ten-story building, located in a narrow alley in a residential neighborhood of Hanoi.
Firefighters had to climb the façade to access some of the affected areas, according to other images.
About 150 people live in the building, whose balconies are protected by bars that isolate them from the outside, according to authorities cited by state media.
“There is no emergency exit, it is impossible for the victims to escape,” Hoa, a resident of the neighborhood who did not want to give her full name, told AFP.
“You could hear cries for help. We couldn’t help them much,” he continued.
Smoke “everywhere”
Another witness, Huong, saw a small child being thrown out of the window to escape the flames.
“There was smoke everywhere. A little boy was thrown from a high floor, I don’t know if he survived, if people stopped him with a mattress,” Huong described.
The tragedy takes place just two days after a whirlwind visit by US President Joe Biden, who left the Vietnamese capital on Monday.
Vietnam has recorded several deadly fires in recent years that fueled suspicions about the lack of application of basic safety rules, sometimes ignored in Southeast Asia.
A fire in a karaoke bar near Ho Chi Minh City (south) a year ago left 32 dead. At that time, the prime minister ordered that places at risk of fire be inspected.
In December 2022, 26 people died in a fire at a casino hotel on the Cambodia-Thai border during the New Year holidays.
Cambodian authorities attributed the fire to an electrical short circuit. The layout of the building delayed the intervention of lifeguards.
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