Grasping the edge of a balcony 48 stories from the ground, just meters away from a raging fire, the photographer thought he might not live to see this year.
“One hour, then that’s it, I’m dead,” he thought as he stood on the tiny sill of a balcony in Dubai’s luxury The Address Downtown hotel, attached by a rope to a massive window-cleaning platform.
Not long before, he had entered the balcony with a friend to take photographs of the nearby New Year’s Eve fireworks display for his newspaper, but the night suddenly changed when a huge fire erupted in the hotel below, engulfing several floors of the huge building in the heart of the skyscraper city.
Photo: EPA
“There’s a fire,” his friend shouted, rushing toward the nearest exit, before the photographer looked out and saw “smoke coming toward the balcony.”
Afraid that he would die from suffocation, and unable to see how he could escape, the photographer decided there was only one thing for it — to tie a rope from himself to a window-cleaning platform and hang off the balcony.
He rolled out 30m of a heavy-duty cable from a nearby machine used by workers to clean the tower’s windows, attached it to his belt and photographic equipment, and stepped off the edge.
The rope “was my savior”, he said, asking not to be named and explaining that the fire was less than 10m away from him at that point.
He feared he would die from suffocation, he said.
“I wasn’t sure what was happening downstairs. I was afraid I might collapse from the smoke,” he said.
Holding on for dear life outside the building, he began calling and texting his colleagues asking them to get in touch with civil defense officials for help.
Civil defense representatives kept him calm as he waited to be rescued.
“I was telling them I hoped to survive and see my wife,” he said.
More than half an hour later, he heard rescue workers approaching his floor.
“When I saw lights and heard the sounds of footsteps at the floor I was in, I started tapping on the aluminum to get their attention,” he said.
“I think I was the only person left stuck that long,” he said, describing how he was led out through the smoke-filled corridors of the five-star hotel.
Dubai’s police chief said that all the residents had been evacuated due to the blaze, the cause of which was unknown.
Not far away, Dubai’s fireworks display erupted as usual to welcome in the New Year, starting from the Burj Khalifa — the world’s tallest building — before spreading across the skies above the city.
For the photographer, the start of the year was something he would never forget.
“I’m excited because it’s New Year, and [filled with] an adrenaline rush,” he said, his voice still shaky.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS