Inferno claims over 40, dozens hurt
Taipei – An overnight fire tore through a building in the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung yesterday, killing 46 people and injuring dozens of others in the island’s deadliest blaze in decades.
The fire broke out in the 13-storey, mixed-use building in the small hours of the morning, according to officials, raging through multiple floors before firefighters got it under control.
Kaohsiung’s fire department said it sent more than 70 trucks to tackle the blaze, which took four hours to put out.
As daylight broke, the sheer scale of the fire became clear, with every floor of the building visibly blackened and most of its windows shattered.
The fire department said the blaze “caused 41 injuries and 46 deaths”, with officials adding that most of the fatalities occurred on floors seven to 11, which housed residential apartments. The first five floors were for commercial use but were unoccupied.
Residents reported hearing a number of loud noises when the fire first broke out on the lower floors.
“I heard many loud bangs – bang, bang, bang – on the ground floor and came down to investigate,” an unidentified man who lived in the building said.
“That’s when I realised there was a fire and called the police.”
An unnamed female survivor, describing the scene on her floor, said: “When I opened the door to get out, the hallway was full of black smoke.”
As night fell, police announced emergency services had finished searching the building with no further casualties found. The 40-year-old building housed mostly low-income residents. –