Baku, Azerbaijan, May 19
By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:
All the residents of the building in Baku, where a fire erupted May 19, have been evacuated, and at the moment there is no one left inside, the deputy emergency situations minister of Azerbaijan, Lieutenant-General Etibar Mirzayev, told reporters.
He said about 40 fire brigades were working at the scene. The fire has already been extinguished, according to the latest reports.
According to the witnesses, the building's plastic cladding was burning.
Lieutenant-General Etibar Mirzayev said two helicopters were involved in the extinguishing of the fire outbreak.
He explained the delay in extinguishing the fire by saying the traffic jams prevented the fire brigades to reach the scene quickly.
"Experts will assess the damage inflicted to the building," he added. "The causes of the fire are under investigation."
The deputy minister said the building didn't have gas supply, but during the fire there were several explosions of gas cylinders.
"The fire also injured the emergency situations ministry's employees. Some 25 people were evacuated during the fire. Those who remained in their apartments during the fire weren't injured. Those who in a panic tried to get out of the building were injured, most of them were poisoned by combustion products," said Mirzayev.
The death toll in the fire reached 16, and 54 people were injured, the representative of the country's healthcare ministry, Safaya Ahmadova, told Trend.
Ahmadova earlier told Trend that one of the killed was a small child.
On May 19 morning, Azerbaijan's Emergency Situations Ministry received a call about a fire in a residential building in the Binagadi district of Baku. The fire brigades were immediately dispatched to the scene.
Edited by SI
