Heat, smoke, screams: fear and chaos of deadly Hanoi apartment fire

As authorities are handling consequences from a fire that killed 56 people at an apartment block in Hanoi, survivors are picking up the pieces with memories of a horrifying escape.

Ngo Pho Dien, 67, was on guard duty at the block on Khuong Ha Street, Hanoi's Thanh Xuan District at around 11 p.m. Tuesday when he saw an electrical plug on the first floor on fire.

As the flames were small, he went to get a fire extinguisher to put it out. But the more he tried, the larger the flames became.

"I then ran to warn the people in the building," Dien said.

At the time, lights had been turned down at the 10-story building that spans 200 m2 with around 45 apartments. Most of its residents were already asleep.

When they heard the sounds of small explosions and the fire siren, some people from different floors came down to try and extinguish the fire.

But the situation was already getting out of control. The flames had engulfed numerous motorbikes on the first-floor parking lot, producing a string of explosions.

The smoke soon followed suit, filling up the entire space and creeping towards ever higher floors. The heat and the fumes quickly overwhelmed residents, forcing them to abandon their firefighting efforts to run upstairs, desperately looking for an escape.

On other floors, people began to panic and pour out of the apartments, but the staircases were already full. Some tried to run to the rooftop to call for help, either by phone or social media. Others jumped to the roofs of nearby houses.

Among the people in the building that night were Duong Quyet Thang and his wife Tran Thi Thanh Huong.

Their family of five, including three children, lives on the third floor, in an 50 m2 apartment. They have lived there for eight years.

As the family was going to sleep, the fire alarm rang. Thang went to wake his wife and children, and let two of the children, 9-year-old Duong Thuy Linh and her brother, 8-year-old Duong Khanh Thien run to the rooftop and avoid the smoke.

Thang and his wife stayed behind, with their 2-year-old daughter, and blocked the opening of the apartment with soaked garments and clothes to prevent the fumes from getting in.

The elevators stopped working, and the staircases were rendered unusable. Every exit has been blocked by the flames. Thang’s family then led one another to the corridor behind the apartment, trying to find a way out through the metal cage. About a year ago, following news of multiple fires, Thang had installed an emergency exit there.

He threw down a wet blanket onto the roof of an adjacent house, held his little daughter, and jumped down from the third floor. The impact stunned him momentarily and broke his left arm. When his wife jumped down, the tin roof couldn't handle all their weight and gave in. The couple and their child punctured a hole in the roof and fell down below.

Limping through their pain, they got out into the street to be met with the sounds of screams, footsteps and sirens. Around 10 minutes later, rescuers came to their aid and took them to hospital.

 

 

Heat, smoke, screams: fear and chaos of deadly Hanoi apartment fire

Cứu người mắc kẹt trong vụ cháy chung cư mini

On the sixth floor, another resident, Trung, and his family broke on to the balcony before escaping to the roof of a neighbor's house on the fifth floor, thanks to the neighbor's ladder. On the seventh floor, the family of 9-year-old Huy Minh used wet napkins to cover their noses and mouths, waiting for rescue.

"My father screamed for help from room 702, and my mother told me that if firefighters came, I was to do what they say," the boy said while being treated at Bach Mai Hospital.

Around 10 minutes later, when the flames began to rise higher, firefighter trucks arrived at the scene. The fire was already licking the walls through the small openings, and thick black fumes covered the entire area.

As the building was located deep within an alley, the trucks had to park around 400 m from the fire. Hundreds of firefighters joined the fray to put out the flames from all directions.

In the front of the building, officers gained access to the floors using ladders, destroying the metal cages. In the back, hoses blasted water inside the building. The entire region experienced a power outage, forcing firefighters to use flashlights to look for people.

Dozens of oxygen tanks were continually brought inside. "Where's the stretcher?" someone screamed.

"Come on!" a man shouted as he brought out a child wrapped in a blanket and ran towards the nearest ambulance.

A firefighter said the building was swallowed by darkness, and the stairs were slippery. The smoke was still present, forcing people to use oxygen tanks.

The only rays of light came from the flashlights of the firefighters but it was not enough to dispel the thick layers of smoke filling the air. They had to search the floors room by room, stumbling in the dark, looking for survivors.

Huy and his family escaped from the fire by swinging down from the third floor with a rope. Photo by VnExpress/Pham Chieu

Pham Quoc Viet, from the first-aid team FAS Angel, said that after midnight on Wednesday, two ambulances were dispatched to the scene. As the team was not aware which rooms had people, they had to check them one by one, breaking down the doors and getting dozens of people out. The unbearable heat continually disrupted the process.

At around 1 a.m., the fire was largely put under control, but there was still lots of smoke inside and some small fires here and there.

As the morning came, it began to rain heavily. Officers could be seen exhausted after four hours of intense firefighting and rescue efforts. Over 10 officers were injured, and some had to be hospitalized. Those who lost their lives were brought outside at around 5 a.m.

By Wednesday night, authorities launched an investigation to figure out the cause of the fire, which resulted in 56 deaths including 10 children, and 37 injured. People began to look for missing family members.

As for Thang, he now runs back and forth to look after his two children in the Bach Mai Hospital, then runs out to search for news of his eldest daughter, who got separated from her brother during the escape. His wife suffered from spinal injuries and was being treated at the Saint Paul Hospital.

Thang's entire extended family is now looking for their little girl.

"We have searched around 10 hospitals but never found her," Quynh, Thang's father-in-law, said through tears.