Fire at Vietnam condominium complex kills 13, injures 27; blaze under control after 200 firefighters engage in rescue operations

Hanoi: A fire at a condominium complex in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City early Friday morning killed at least 13 people and injured another 27, police said. State media said most people died of suffocation or jumping from high floors. It’s unclear whether anyone was missing, said the city fire and police department, declining to give more details. [caption id=“attachment_4402155” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. IBN[/caption] “We were sleeping when the fire alarm went off, we all rushed out to the staircases. It was very hot and dark,” online newspaper VnExpress quoted condominium resident Le Thi Cam as saying. “We were awakened by loud noise. We ran out of the apartment but there was a lot of smoke. We only had enough time to grab the mobile phone, wet some towels to cover ourselves and ran out,” the newspaper quoted an unnamed male resident as saying. The three buildings with more than 700 apartments were built six years ago in Vietnam’s southern commercial hub. The three buildings have 14 to 20 floors. The official Vietnam News Agency said the blaze started in the basement parking area and took more than 200 firefighters more than an hour to put under control. In 2002, a fire at a trade center in downtown Ho Chi Minh City killed 60 people in one of Vietnam’s worst fires.