Dousing the flames: Firefighters working to put out the fire and rescue people at an apartment block in Hanoi. — AFP
Dozens of people died in a fire at an apartment block in the capital Hanoi, state media said, with witnesses reporting screams from inside and a small boy thrown from the building.
The fire started just before midnight on Tuesday local time in the parking floor of the 10-storey building, an area packed with motorbikes, witnesses said.
Authorities rescued about 70 people and rushed 54 to hospital, including “dozens of dead”, the official Vietnam News Agency said yesterday.
At least three children were among the dead, Viettimes, an online state newspaper, reported.
“I heard a lot of shouts for help. We could not help them much,” said Hoa, a woman who lives near the block and gave only one name. “The apartment is so closed with no escape route, impossible for the victims to get out,” she said at the site.
Photos by AFP photographers on the scene overnight showed flames and smoke billowing from barred balconies.
The blaze was out by yesterday morning, as rescuers still struggled to access the building, which is down a narrow alley in a residential area of southwest Hanoi.
The building’s small balconies were surrounded by iron bars, with the apartment block having only a single exit – and no emergency ladder on the outside.
Around 150 people lived in the complex, authorities said.
Another witness, Huong, said a small boy was thrown from a high floor to help him escape the flames.
“I was about to sleep when I smelled something. I went outside and saw the fire,” she said.
“The smoke was everywhere. There was a little boy thrown from a high floor, I don’t know whether he survived or not although people used a mattress to catch him,” she said.
Neighbours reported several others jumping from the block.
“There was a middle-aged woman jumping down onto my terrace here. She hit her arm and broke it. Another person also jumped down here and broke their legs,” said Dao To Nga.
“A child was put into a plastic basket and lowered down”.
Some were able to flee the building using her roof.
One survivor, Nguyen Thi Minh Hong, said that her family waited in their seventh-floor apartment at the back of the building for five hours before help arrived.
“We were sleeping when suddenly we felt very hot because the power had been cut. My husband opened the door and we heard people shouting for help and we saw smoke,” the 34-year-old said.
The family, which included her two children aged six and nine, tried to escape to the roof but were forced back into their apartment due to the heat of the fire.
“I was so scared. We stayed inside the room for five hours ... I just tried to calm my kids down by holding a wet towel to their face,” she said.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, who visited the site yesterday, ordered an investigation into the fire.
At a visit to survivors at Bach Mai Hospital, Chinh was told by clinic director Dao Xuan Co that two of his patients were in serious condition, while 22 were recovering from minor injuries.
“However many of them were in shock,” he told Chinh, adding they were receiving psychological treatment. — AFP
