Dozens of people died Wednesday in a fire in a residential building in the capital Hanoi, a new tragedy in Vietnam, after several deadly fires in recent years.
The Deputy Minister of Public Security, Le Van Tuyen, acknowledged that the number of deceased victims was “enormous”, but no toll has yet been announced by the communist power.
The official news agency previously reported “54 people taken to hospitals, including dozens of deaths.”
It could be one of the deadliest fires in Vietnam, which is regularly embroiled in controversies surrounding non-compliance with basic safety standards.
Hundreds of people gathered outside a Hanoi morgue to help identify numerous dead bodies. Some burst into tears when they realized that close family members were among those who died.
“We don’t know when they will give us the bodies, we are waiting here to bring them back to our province and bury them,” says Dung, from the province of Thai Binh (north), who lost two cousins ??in the fire.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh ordered an investigation.
The leader visited the site, making his way among the charred motorcycles, before going to the bedside of victims being treated in a hospital in the city.
The fire broke out in the parking lot just before midnight (5:00 p.m. GMT) during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, witnesses said.
“We were sleeping when suddenly we felt very hot because the power was gone,” Nguyen Thi Minh Hong, a survivor treated in a hospital, told AFP.
“I was so scared. We stayed inside the room for five hours,” said the 34-year-old woman who lives on the 7th floor of the building. “I tried to calm my (two) children by holding a wet towel to their faces.”
“We were between life and death,” she remembers.
Videos broadcast by local media showed the scale of the fire which spread across a large part of the ten-story building, located in a narrow alley in a residential area of ??the capital.
The configuration of the alley, typical of the bustling capital of eight million inhabitants, made access to the site difficult for rescuers.
Around 150 people live in the building, whose balconies are protected by grills that cut them off from the outside.
“There is no escape route, it is impossible for the victims to escape,” Hoa, a resident of the neighborhood who only gave one name, told AFP.
Another witness, Huong, saw a little boy being thrown from a window to escape the flames.
“The smoke was everywhere. A little boy was thrown from a high floor, I don’t know if he survived or if people caught him with a mattress,” Huong described.
Neighbors saw residents jump from the building, risking their lives, and others escape through roofs.
“My family’s roof allowed 14, 15 people to escape,” said Dao To Nga, a neighbor of the damaged building.
The drama comes two days after a whirlwind visit by American President Joe Biden, who left the Vietnamese capital on Monday.
Vietnam has experienced several deadly fires in recent years which have fueled suspicions around the 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. The Prime Minister then ordered the inspection of risk sites.
Last December, some 26 people were killed in a fire at a hotel-casino on the Cambodia-Thailand border during the holiday season.
Cambodian authorities attributed the fire to an electrical short circuit and the configuration of the building which delayed the emergency response.
13/09/2023 13:45:33 – Hanoi (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
