2 Killed in Abu Dhabi building fire

A fire broke out in a seventeen storey apartment building at the intersection of Al Falah Street and Al Muroor Road at 4.30pm Thursday. According to eyewitnesses, two Syrians were killed inside apartment 1102. A third man, who is Egyptian, jumped out of the eleventh floor to escape the fate of his roommates. He was rushed to a hospital where he remains with serious injuries.  “The apartment caught fire when a gas cylinder exploded trapping the people inside, and it lasted about four hours,” said A.E, tailor in an adjacent building, “The roommates had been asleep when a candle used to emit light ignited the rug in the apartment,” an eyewitness, who lives in the building, told Gulf News. Electricity had been cut The man who did not wish to be identified said electricity was cut to about half the building's apartments, forcing people to use candles as their source of light. “The municipality and building owner exchanged accusation as to who cut the electricity since December 7 and the tenants remain unaware of the reason or the expected on return of power to the building,” he added. The building appears to be very poorly maintained from the exterior. One of the tenants, a Yemeni, said that the building owner had cut the power to force people out of the building. The occupants were all bachelors of various nationalities, he said. Third fire in the building this month Two eyewitnesses, who wish to remain anonymous, reported that Thursday's fire was the third that occurred in the building this month. “A fire broke out yesterday in apartment 202, also caused by a candle. Luckily, the occupants were awake, and put out the fire right away. Only one man sustained minor burns to his fingers,” the witnesses said. Ten days earlier apartment 201 caught fire for the same reason. No one was reported injured then. Colonel Mohammad Abdullah Al Nuaimi, Assistant Director of the Abu Dhabi Civil Defence Department, said that one person died in the bathroom as a result of suffocation while the other man jumped out of the window to his death. Two rescued Al Nuaimi added that a third man was injured badly and was rushed to the hospital. He also said that two men were rescued with the help of hydraulic ladders. Al Nuaimi said that the operations room received a call at 4.50pm and the civil defence and vehicles from the Abu Dhabi Traffic Department, the Emergency, Safety, and Security Media, rushed to the location. Hydraulic ladders The fire was controlled immediately and the location was secured, thus preventing the blaze from spreading to other flats in neighbouring buildings. He added that the cooling down process was successful within a few minutes after the team’s arrival. He added that hydraulic ladders were used because the flats rented out to bachelors did not have proper safety measures. Al Nuaimi has called upon all building owners in Abu Dhabi to abide by general safety rules to prevent such incidents from recurring.