Dozens of people were killed in a very serious fire in a residential building in the capital Hanoi on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, Vietnamese state media said.
Some “54 people were taken to hospitals, including dozens of deaths,” according to Vietnam’s official press agency, citing an initial report from local authorities.
“It is a very serious fire,” said Vietnam News Agency.
The text added that rescue teams managed to rescue 70 people trapped in the burning building.
The search operation continues Wednesday morning, while the fire is no longer active.
It could be one of the deadliest fires that Vietnam has seen in recent years, regularly caught up in controversies around non-compliance with basic safety rules.
The fire broke out in the parking lot just before midnight (5 p.m. GMT) during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, witnesses said.
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 Hanoi.
Firefighters had to climb the facade to access certain disaster areas, according to other images.
Around 150 people live in the building, whose balconies are protected by grills which cut them off from the outside, according to authorities cited by state media.
“There is no escape route, it is impossible for the victims to escape,” Hoa, a resident of the neighborhood who only gave her name, told AFP.
“There were cries for help. We can’t help them too much,” she continued.
Smoke “everywhere”
Another witness 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.
Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang visited the site on Wednesday morning, according to state media.
The drama comes two days after the lightning visit of American President Joe Biden, who left the Vietnamese capital on Monday.
Vietnam has experienced several fatal fires in recent years which have fueled suspicion around 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.
Some 26 people were killed in a fire at a hotel-casino on the border between Cambodia and Thailand during the end-of-year holidays last December.
Cambodian authorities attributed the fire to an electrical short circuit and the configuration of the building which delayed the emergency response.