Why did so many people die in the mini apartment fire?

Tube houses without a second escape route and residents lacking coping skills... are the main reasons why many people died in the apartment fire on Khuong Ha street, according to experts.

Within just two hours, a fire at a mini apartment building on Khuong Ha Street (Thanh Xuan, Hanoi ) on the night of September 12 killed 56 people and injured 37. This was the fire with the largest number of casualties in the past 21 years, only after the fire at the International Trade Center ITC in Ho Chi Minh City in 2002 (60 dead, 70 injured).

Nearly a day after the fire, the owner of the mini apartment Nghiem Quang Minh (44 years old, residing in Cau Giay district) was prosecuted and detained for 4 months for violating fire prevention and fighting regulations under Article 313 of the Penal Code.

Eight years ago, Minh applied for a construction permit for a single-family house on a land area of 240 square meters. Thanh Xuan District then granted a permit for 6 floors, the first floor construction area was 167 square meters, the construction density was 70%, the total height of the building was 20.2 meters (excluding the elevator shaft). However, Minh turned the building into a 10-story mini apartment building, the construction area was 230 square meters, the density was nearly 100%, each floor had 4-5 apartments for sale to 45 households (150 residents).

"The owner of the mini apartment building that caught fire circumvented the law, deliberately applying for a license as a private house under 7 floors to avoid having to review the fire prevention design, and lacked fire prevention and fighting equipment according to regulations," said Mr. Bui Xuan Thai, an expert from the Fire Prevention and Rescue Association.

According to Regulation 06 on fire safety techniques, buildings with 7 floors or more must have a fire prevention certificate when applying for a building permit with strict regulations such as having two escape routes and being equipped with many fire prevention devices.

Inspecting the mini apartment building that caught fire on September 14, the Ministry of Construction pointed out a series of violations in fire safety, in which it determined that the cause was due to the local government's lax management . "Violations in licensing, failure to ensure safety conditions... were all due to the locality being decentralized to manage, but being lax," said Mr. Vu Ngoc Anh, Director of the Department of Science, Technology and Environment.

In fact, Thanh Xuan district discovered the illegal construction and issued a document to impose a fine and enforce it, according to Mr. Dang Hong Thai, former Vice Chairman of the district People's Committee, who signed the decision to grant the license. However, after the fire broke out, eight years later, Mr. Thai said, "at that time, I issued a decision to enforce it and assigned Khuong Dinh ward to carry it out. What happens next, we have to check again."

The building was built with 10 floors when it was only supposed to have 6 floors. Photo: Gia Chinh

The 10-story building was built in a tube-shaped style with three closed sides and no second escape route, other than the staircase that doubles as the first escape route. The building's security guard said the fire started from an electrical outlet in the first-floor parking area, then flared up and spread to the upper floors, making it impossible to access and rescue people from this entrance.

Records at the scene show that the only escape and rescue route is the apartment's loggia, but most of them are fenced off with a "tiger cage"-style stainless steel frame. Some apartments have an exit but are locked from the inside or do not have a ladder. According to calculations, the time for rescue forces to cut through the iron frame is usually at least 5-10 minutes, so the "golden time" to save people may be missed.

Lieutenant Duong Van Linh, who directly participated in the firefighting and rescue, said that four soldiers used ropes to climb to the fourth floor, carrying tools such as cutters and pliers to break the "tiger cages" to rescue the people inside. The tiger cages did not have exits, making the rescue and bringing the victims out more difficult.

Two days after the fire, Mr. Nguyen Van Dai, a first aid support team member of FAS Angel, was still shocked when he saw many victims' bodies on the stairs and in front of the apartment doors on the upper floors. "Victims who escaped through the balcony still have a higher chance of survival than other ways," Mr. Dai said, saying that the narrow stairs, about 1.5 meters wide, made it difficult to escape, and also made rescue work difficult when having to transport many victims at the same time.

Senior Lieutenant Pham Truong Tuan Anh, Fire Prevention and Rescue Police Team, Area 2, said that the area with the most deaths was from the stairs from the 7th floor up. "It is possible that when the fire broke out, many people ran downstairs, but the smoke and fire were so strong that they ran back up to the top floor in the hope of escaping. Panic, narrow stairs, and too many people led to this tragedy," he said.

The Ministry of Construction's inspection team confirmed that most of the victims who died in the mini apartment fire in Khuong Ha were due to smoke inhalation. The building has a skylight, and when the fire broke out, smoke and fire followed the ventilation shaft up, through the windows into the rooms. "Therefore, most of the rooms in the apartment were contaminated with smoke. In particular, on the 4th floor, there was a room with a lot of fire because the fire followed the ventilation shaft through the window and burned into materials such as curtains," said Mr. Vu Ngoc Anh.

The A9 Emergency Center of Bach Mai Hospital is treating 24 patients in the Khuong Ha apartment fire, with injuries mainly caused by smoke inhalation. According to doctors, CO gas produced from fires can cause victims to faint, gradually fall into a coma, stop breathing, and quickly die.

Another reason for the high death toll in fires is that residents lack coping skills. Rescuers said that when the mini-apartment building caught fire, many victims went into the bathroom, closed the door, and turned on the water, leading to death from smoke inhalation. Others panicked and hid under beds, in closets, and some jumped from high floors, leading to death or serious injuries.

According to fire prevention experts, the most basic principle is that people must avoid smoke and high temperatures. If you observe that it is difficult to escape from the house by stairs, you need to stay calm, evaluate the safety plan to avoid smoke and find an emergency exit (for example, windows, balconies, loggias, etc.).

People need to close and seal the door with a wet cloth, move flammable objects away from the door, then go to an open space exposed to the air (balcony, loggia, window) and wait there if there is no rope ladder. If this area is also affected by smoke from below, they must go back into the house and close the door to prevent smoke from entering.

In the mini apartment fire in Khuong Ha, some residents with coping skills saved themselves and their families. Mr. Nguyen Cong Huy (41 years old, living on the 3rd floor of the apartment building) used a rope ladder equipped in advance to climb down to safety, 7 people in two other apartments also escaped this way. Firefighters then followed the rope ladder to the 5th floor to rescue 4 more people in a family.

Firefighters climbed the wall to reach the victims. Photo: Gia Chinh

The 10-storey mini apartment building is about 500m from Khuong Ha street, located deep in an alley, making it difficult for firefighting and rescue work . 15 fire trucks were dispatched to the scene but had to stop about 400m away, because the alley was too narrow, only about 3m. The police had to pull a water hose from the tank outside to put out the fire. A modern ladder truck was also dispatched but could not be used, firefighters had to use small ladders to climb up to the floors of the building.

Meanwhile, according to Regulation 06 on fire safety techniques, apartment buildings with 7 floors or more must ensure access for fire trucks, fire truck parking lots no further than 10 meters, and the building must be equipped with fire hydrants.

In addition, experts and rescue forces also pointed out that the fire broke out at midnight, leaving many people unable to react in time, making firefighting and rescue difficult.

On September 15, the Prime Minister issued a dispatch requesting a general review and inspection of fire prevention and fighting in apartment buildings, houses with many apartments, high-density rental houses, and houses combined with business nationwide. The Ministry of Construction was assigned the responsibility of supplementing fire prevention and fighting standards for mini-apartments and high-density rental houses, and promptly amending the regulations and standards for individual houses.

According to statistics from Hanoi Electricity, the whole city has about 2,000 mini apartments, concentrated in Bac Tu Liem, Nam Tu Liem, Dong Da, Thanh Xuan, Cau Giay, and Tay Ho districts.

Reporter team

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