Many killed in Hanoi apartment fire

The fire started at 11 p.m. at a mini apartment building in a small alley off Khuong Ha Street in Thanh Xuan District, when people in the building were asleep or about to go to sleep. Around 150 people lived in the 10-story building, which is basically a tube house divided into rooms for rent.

As of Wednesday morning, 70 people have been rescued with 54 of them, including many children, rushed to different hospitals in Hanoi.

People wait to be rescued on the 10th floor of an apartment building that caught fire in Hanoi on the night of September 12, 2023. Photo by VnExpress

Hospitals have confirmed 10 victims dead.

Dong Da General Hospital said it has received eight patients as of 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, and four of them have died while the other four have been transferred to another hospital.

Dr. Nguyen Dinh Phuc, director of the hospital, said the patients were in panic. One of them suffered spinal cord injuries after falling from a high floor, while a woman and her child suffered suffocation.

Another four victims sent to Ha Dong General Hospital also died. "They were two women and two children around 4-6 years old," the hospital director Dao Thien Tien said.

Hanoi Medical University Hospital admitted seven victims and one of them died. Another victim suffered multiple injuries after jumping from a high floor while three others have been discharged with slight injures.

Two victims were rushed to the Post Office Hospital but one of them, a child, died before admission.

A victim of an apartment fire in Hanoi is taken to hospital in the morning of September 13, 2023. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy

A fire police officer said it's not clear yet how many people were inside the building during the fire.

Police said they arrived around 10 minutes after being informed and put out the fire after one hour, but rescue work took until morning.

The building lies around 500 meters from the main road but it can only be accessed via zigzagging small routes. Its first floor functions as the motorbike parking lot, and the nine upper floors were each divided into five rooms of around 20 square meters. There are no escape stairs on the outside.

Multiple floors of the building seen from above. Photo by VnExpress/Gia Chinh

Several eyewitnesses said the fire started from the motorbike parking lot on the first floor. Several people ran towards the top floor while some jumped onto the roofs of nearby houses.

The fire grew strongly and its smoke column was visible around one km away, they said.

Nguyen Cong Huy, who rents a room on the third floor, said he woke his wife and two children up after smelling smoke. They opened the door to thick smoke and so decided to climb down from their window with a rope.

"If we had been around 5 minutes late, we could have died from suffocation," Huy said.

A person living nearby said the plastic roof of their five-story house was broken after people from the burned building jumped onto it.

Fire police who rushed to the site approached the building from different sides, climbing up from outside to rescue the victims on upper floors.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang, Deputy Minister of Public Security Nguyen Van Long came to inspect the site on Wednesday and instruct rescue work.

 

 

Many killed in Hanoi apartment fire

Cứu người mắc kẹt trong vụ cháy chung cư mini