A terrifying fire that broke out at midnight from Tuesday to Wednesday in a residential building in Hanoi leaves 56 dead. The fire started for unknown reasons in the parking lot of the ten-story building, located in a neighborhood of narrow streets in the Vietnamese capital. This made access difficult for firefighters, who could only use a ladder to rescue the trapped residents.
In total, seventy people were able to escape the flames, thirty-seven of whom were injured and remain hospitalized. One of the survivors, Nguyen Thi Minh Hong, says that she was already sleeping when "suddenly, the heat became unbearable." From her hospital bed, the woman recounts how she tried to climb to the roof with her family and, when they were unable to do so due to the thick smoke, they returned to her home, where they placed wet towels under the doors. Fortunately for them, at five in the morning the firefighters managed to access the apartment and save them.
Both rescue and escape were made difficult by the bars that protect many of the windows. At least one child was thrown behind bars by her parents to try to save him or prevent him from a more painful death. Others managed to jump from higher floors, but often with fatal consequences. Finally, between 14 and 15 people managed to jump to the roof of a nearby building and save themselves. The residents of nearby properties relate their anguish and helplessness upon hearing the cries for help.
So far, 39 of the 56 bodies have been identified. Two grandmothers, in the morgue supervised by the army, said they had lost their children and grandchildren in the fire: "A whole family."
The tenants had been asking the property for anti-fire measures for some time that never came. The building did not have an emergency staircase and supervision of these types of requirements is scarce in Vietnam. Even so, the country had not suffered a tragedy of this magnitude due to this cause in twenty years.
Government authorities have promised an investigation to clarify the causes of the incident and the owner of the property was arrested late on Wednesday. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh inspected the burned building this Wednesday, before going to the hospital. The city council of the Vietnamese capital, for its part, has promised compensation to the families equivalent to 1,500 euros for each victim.
Just a year ago, a fire at a karaoke bar caused 32 deaths in Ho Chi Minh, the former Saigon. Last December, another 26 people died due to flames in a casino-hotel in Cambodia, located next to the Thai border and owned by a fugitive Thai politician convicted of corruption.
