Vietnam
Inferno in Hanoi: More than 30 dead in fire in residential building
Rescue workers carry a person out of a burning building. photo
© Pham Trung Kien/VNA/AP/dpa
Late in the evening, a residential building in Hanoi suddenly caught fire – when most of the residents were already asleep. The record is terrible.
A devastating fire broke out in a residential building in Vietnam’s capital At least 30 people died in Hanoi. More than 100 people were rescued from the nine-story apartment building late Tuesday evening, the Lao Dong newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing local police.
According to the newspaper “VnExpress”, more than 50 residents were taken to various hospitals with injuries. The cause of fire was unclear for the moment. The authorities are investigating.
According to media reports, around 150 people lived in 45 mini-apartments in the building in the Thanh Xuan district. When the fire broke out late Tuesday evening, most people were already asleep. According to initial investigations, the fire started on the first floor, where there was a parking lot for scooters.
According to authorities, the flames quickly spread to the upper floors. Some panicked residents jumped from the roof onto adjacent buildings to save themselves from the flames, while others rappelled down from lower floors, it was said.
Charred walls, burned scooters
Around 15 fire engines and more than 100 firefighters finally brought the fire under control. Photos shared online showed completely charred interior walls and the remains of numerous burnt scooters.
Dozens of people were trapped in the burning house because there was only a single emergency exit, it said. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, who was on site to assess the disaster, said authorities must learn from this tragedy. “A building like this must have exits,” he said. It is impossible to build so many floors and more than 40 apartments without enough emergency exits.
Fires occur frequently in Vietnam with many victims. The reason is a lack of fire protection regulations. Last year, more than 20 people died in a fire at a karaoke bar in the south of the country. In 2018, more than a dozen people died in a fire in a high-rise building in Ho Chi Minh City.