Abu Dhabi: Survivors of a killer blaze in a car repair and tyre shop facility jumped from the mezzanine level early Friday as flames ripped through the building, said eyewitnesses.
One man said he is lucky to be alive after waking up in the middle of the morning and escaping the blaze which claimed 10 people’s lives and injured another eight who are believed to be living in accomodations that were illegal.
Ten people died and eight others of different nationalities sustained minor to moderate to severe injuries on Friday, in a fire that broke out at a building in Al Mussafah Industrial Area. The fire started in the first floor of the two-story commercial building that houses seven shops and a car-repair shop, before spreading to the warehouse on the second floor that was used as an illegal accommodation for workers.
The mezzanine floor was being used as a workers’ accommodation complete with wooden partitions that caught fire quickly. Some of the injured workers jumped out of the upper floor onto the ground.
The service road around the building is used as a car parking at night. This is why witnesses reported seeing three vehicles completely burnt.
Mubarak, 30, from Bangladesh said he was sleeping when the fire broke out at 3.30am. He said he was sleeping on the floor above in a room that accommodates labourers and workers of neighbouring shops.
“I ran out of the building and my colleagues called police. I ran back to my room because many of my friends were sleeping. One of them had a fractured leg. I picked him up and brought him down. The fire started to rage and police came. I could not go back to my room. I have lost all my belongings,” Mubarak said.
He was living in that room for the last 90 days.
Thick, black smoke surrounded the scene just behind the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD), witnesses said.
“I was at work today and between my office and the place of the incident, I would say there is about 100 to 150 metres. I saw people who had suffocated from the smoke and were being treated on site by ambulances. Authorities cut off electricity from the entire block for an hour or so until the situation was under control. This leads me to believe that the cause of the incident was an electrical malfunction” Hakim, a delegate for a contracting company told Gulf News.
Another witness, Mansour who works in a nearby electrical supplies shop said that he had seen two vehicles almost completely engulfed by the flames.
Aziz, a witness from Bangladesh said: “The fire erupted while labourers were asleep at a nearby camp. The fire spread quickly due to strong winds.”
The building contained no emergency exit, one witness said. “The fire started near the main entrance of the building so those sleeping on the upper floor were surrounded with no way out,” Qaisar an electrician said.
Victims were brought to public hospital, the Shaikh Khalifa Medical City (SKMC), at about 8am, said Nizam, a Bangladeshi worker who lives in Musaffah Industria area.
“We wanted to see what was happening, but the area was cordoned off by police personnel and I don’t know if anyone was really allowed to enter the hospital,” he said.
“We heard that some workers were shifted to buildings adjoining SKMC (which earlier housed Al Jazira Hospital) but we did not have access to them either,” he added.
Sources at the Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (Seha), which manages public healthcare facilities in the emirate, were unavailable for comment at the time of going to print.
A doctor, who wished to remain anonymous, said that medical staff who were off duty had been asked to come in.
“Many of us were asked to come to the hospital to help deal with the emergency cases,” he said.
By late afternoon, all emergency vehicles, as well as witnesses and well wishers had dispersed from the hospital.
— With inputs from Atiq-Ur-Rehman, Staff Photographer
