New York Apartment Complex Fire Kills 19; Hundreds Injured
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
NEW YORK (Worthy News) – Nineteen people, including nine children, have been killed from a massive blaze raging through an apartment complex in the Bronx borough in New York City, authorities confirmed Sunday.
Mayor Eric Adams called the toll of the fire in the 19-floor apartment building “horrific.” “This is going to be one of the worst fires that we have witnessed during modern times,” he said.
Dozens of people were rushed to the hospital, with hundreds of firefighters reporting Sunday to the scene. Victims were found on every floor of the apartment building, according to officials familiar with the situation.
The death toll was due to rise. It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the blast.
Fire department Commissioner Daniel Nigro described the fire as “unprecedented” in New York.
Sunday’s blaze comes days after a fire at another apartment building, this time in the city of Philadelphia, killed 12 people, including eight children.
It also happens in a city still reeling from the September 11, 2001 terror attacks that caused the World Trade Center to collapse.
BURNING BUILDING
Footage at Sunday’s scene showed firefighters entering the upper floors of the burning building on a ladder.
Witnesses saw multiple limp children being given oxygen after being carried from the building and evacuees with their faces covered in soot.
Some 200 firefighters struggled to help out the blaze, Nigro told reporters at a Sunday news briefing.
“Members found victims on every floor in stairwells and were taking them out in cardiac and respiratory arrest,” he recalled.
Nigro said the smoke had spread to every floor of the building, likely because the door to the apartment where it started was left open. He stressed that victims had suffered from significant smoke inhalation.
Nigro compared the severity of the fire to the Happy Land social club fire, which killed 87 people in 1990.
That blaze broke out when a man set fire to the building after getting into an argument with his former girlfriend and being thrown out of the club.
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