Young child among at least 12 people dead after Bronx apartment building fire
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At least 12 people have died and more seriously injured in a fire that broke out in an apartment building on a frigid night in the Bronx.
The blaze was in a five-storey building one block from the grounds of the Bronx Zoo.
The cause of the blaze at 2363 Prospect Avenue was not immediately clear, but it began on the first floor and spread rapidly to the third floor, officials said.
“I’m sorry to report 12 New Yorkers are dead, including one child as young as one-year-old,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters at the scene after the blaze was extinguished by firefighters.
Four other people were critically injured and fighting for their lives, officials said.
“We may lose others as well,” the mayor said.
The victims range in age from one to more than 50 years old, de Blasio said.
A nearby school has been set up as a shelter to house those who were evacuated from the building.
The five-alarm fire broke out in the building in the city’s northernmost borough about 7pm local time (0000 GMT on Friday) on a bitterly cold night, with temperatures well below freezing.
About 170 firefighters worked in bone-chilling cold, minus 9.5C, to rescue people from the building.
Photographs and video of the building seemed to show that the fire appeared to be under control. No smoke or flames were visible, but windows on the third floor were smashed and blackened.
One of the deadliest fires in recent memory happened elsewhere in the Bronx in 2007. Nine children and one adult died in a blaze sparked by a space heater.
– with AAP
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