A big fire early yesterday morning raged through two four-story apartment buildings in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), killing four people and leaving another in critical condition, the Taipei Fire Department said.
Shortly after the fire erupted at about 6:40am on the second floor of one of the buildings, the fire department dispatched 22 fire trucks, 2 aerial ladder trucks and 13 ambulances to Huaxi Street.
The street, near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), is an old neighborhood with many decades-old buildings.
The fire quickly spread from the second floor to the other floors of the two buildings, Taipei Fire Department section chief Huang Chien-hua (黃建華) said, adding that 104 firefighters and medical personnel were rushed to the scene to rescue nine people trapped in the buildings.
Nine people were rescued, but four of them died, including a 70-year-old woman, Huang said.
The other three killed were men, the fire department said.
Of the five survivors, one was in critical condition, and another’s heartbeat and breathing resumed after resuscitation attempts by first responders, while two women and one man sustained only minor injuries, Huang said, adding that firefighters also evacuated six other people from the buildings.
Taipei firefighters extinguished the fire by 7:30am, Huang said.
A restaurant was on the first and second floors, while the other floors held rental apartments, the fire department said.
No one was in the restaurant when the fire started, but the fire quickly reached the third and fourth floors, where tenants lived in a space divided into 16 to 20 rooms, Huang said.
Further investigation is needed to determine the cause of the fire and to assess the damage, he added.
The fire was likely caused by sparks from electrical wires, the fire department said.
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