TAIPEI – An overnight fire tore through a building in the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung today, killing 46 people and injuring dozens of others in the island’s deadliest blaze in decades.
The fire broke out in the 13-storey, mixed-use building in the small hours of the morning, according to officials, raging through multiple floors before firefighters finally got it under control.
Pictures published by Taiwan’s official Central News Agency showed smoke billowing out of the building’s windows as firefighters desperately tried to douse the flames using extendable hoses.
Kaohsiung’s fire officials said more than 70 trucks were deployed to tackle the blaze, which took four hours to put out.
As daylight broke, the sheer scale of the fire became clear, with every floor of the building visibly blackened and most of its windows shattered.
The Fire Department said the blaze “caused 41 injuries and 46 deaths”, with officials adding that most of the fatalities occurred on floors seven to 11, housing residential apartments.
The first five floors are for commercial use, but were unoccupied at the time of the incident.
A constable with Kaohsiung police told AFP that the building is 40 years old and mostly occupied by low-income residents.
Survivors estimated that about 100 people lived in the apartment block, he said, adding that officials have not ruled out arson.
Forensic teams are on-site, and further searches of the building are planned before sunset.
The fire looks set to be Taiwan’s deadliest in years. The last fire of a similar magnitude was in 1995, when 64 people died in a packed karaoke club.
As an island frequently battered by earthquakes and typhoons, Taiwan has strict building codes and a generally good safety record.
But, there is often a gap between what the rules state and how safety standards are applied, especially in older buildings.
Some of the highest death tolls in recent earthquakes have come when older buildings collapsed, with subsequent investigations occasionally showing their designs were not up to code.
Earlier this year, 49 people were killed when a train hit a truck that slid onto the tracks, in the island’s worst railway disaster in decades.
Subsequent investigations revealed that government agencies had ignored repeated warnings that such an accident was possible on that particular stretch of mountainside track. – AFP, October 14, 2021
