Home Tags Posts tagged with "blaze"
blaze
A huge fire has broken out at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, the main international airport in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
The Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) said Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) had been closed and passengers evacuated.
Cabinet secretary for transport Michael Kamau said the fire was “very severe” and urged people to stay away from the airport.
Images showed flames raging from one of the main buildings.
The interior ministry tweeted that an evacuation of the entire airport was under way, with only essential personnel remaining, but said the fire had been contained.
There have been no reports of any casualties and the cause of the fire is not clear.
Huge fire has broken out at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi
JKIA is an important regional hub for East Africa, with many long-distance flights landing there to connect to countries across the region.
Dark smoke could be seen billowing into the sky across much of Nairobi as the fire – which began at approximately 05:00 local time – took hold.
Shocked would-be passengers stood outside the airport, bags in hand, watching the blaze.
Multiple reports say the arrivals and immigration sections have been devastated by the blaze.
Mutea Iringo, a senior official at the interior and national co-ordination ministry, earlier confirmed “a serious fire” at JKIA, adding: “We are doing everything possible to avert a crisis.
“Apart from emergency landings, all flights into and out of JKIA have been cancelled… [the] airport has been shut down.”
Cabinet secretary for transport Michael Kamau urged people not to obstruct the work of the emergency services.
“They should allow the emergency work to continue and we kindly request even spectators, people who just want to watch, they should just keep off.”
The KAA said only emergency vehicles were allowed in the area.
The blaze comes two days after aircraft were delayed for several hours after the failure of a hydrant needed for refuelling planes.
It also comes 15 years to the day after attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and in Dar es Salaam in neighboring Tanzania killed more than 224 people – though there has been no suggestion that terrorism played any role in this fire.
[youtube wqn0nyK-sm0]
At least 38 people are feared dead after a fire swept through a psychiatric hospital in the Moscow region, Russian officials say.
The blaze started shortly after 02:00 local time at the No 14 hospital in Ramenskiy village.
Most of the victims are believed to be local patients. There are fears that the death toll could rise further.
At least 38 people are feared dead after a fire swept through the No 14 psychiatric hospital in Ramenskiy village
The cause of the blaze is being investigated, with one report saying it was caused by a short circuit.
The fire broke out in part of the building where patients with severe conditions lived, local officials were quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
“According to preliminary reports, 38 people were killed, including two medical staff,” Health Ministry spokesman Oleg Salagai told Russia’s Ria Novosti news agency.
Firefighters later extinguished the blaze and have so far found 12 bodies.
A local official was quoted as saying that all the windows had metal bars, and most of the victims were found in their beds.
A nurse managed to lead to safety two patients.
It is believed that 41 people were in the hospital when the fire began.
[youtube IEFl9LuGxZE]
Five people including a child have died in an apartment fire in Gennevilliers, a deprived northern suburb of Paris.
The blaze happened early on Wednesday. The five victims shared a flat on the fourth floor of the seven-storey block.
Eighteen people, including an infant, were hurt and most are now in hospital. About 100 firefighters tackled the fire, using a ladder to rescue people.
A firefighter quoted by French TV said the building was in good condition and it is not clear how the fire started.
Two firefighters who suffered burns to their hands were among the 18 injured.
The fire broke out shortly after 04:00 local time and was extinguished at about 06:00. The firefighters managed to prevent it spreading widely through the building.
Five people including a child have died in an apartment fire in Gennevilliers, a deprived northern suburb of Paris
Touching pictures of a mother dog rescuing her ten-day-old puppies from a house fire and carrying them to safety have emerged on the internet.
The blaze broke out at a home in Santa Rosa de Temuco, Chile, on Thursday after a car bomb went off.
The mother dog – a German Shepherd mix called Amanda – risked her life to pick up the puppies in her mouth and carried them from the burning house to the safety of the fire truck.
She ran between the house and truck over and over again until all puppies were safe.
Mother dog Amanda rescuing her ten-day-old puppies from a house fire and carrying them to safety
After rescuing all of her pups from the blaze, Amanda sat down next to them, protecting them with her body as the firefighters fought the blaze.
Amanda and her puppies were then taken to a vet where one puppy called Amparo, who had suffered severe burns, died.
The other four puppies were doing well.
The vet, Felipe Lara, told Soy Chile that Amanda had defended her puppies when they tried to take them away from her to care for them.
Eventually she let them check over her pups but she wanted to stay with ailing Amparo and did not want to let her from her sight.
The pictures first appeared on online social board reddit and quickly became the main story of the day.
Thirteen prisoners have died and five others have been hospitalized after fire broke out in a prison in Sanliurfa province, southeast Turkey, officials said.
The victims suffocated after inmates set bedding alight at the jail in Sanliurfa province.
The fire was brought under control before it spread to the rest of the jail, which houses about 1,000 inmates.
Turkish media said the blaze took place during a mutiny, but the local governor denied the claim.
Thirteen prisoners have died and five others have been hospitalized after fire broke out in a prison in Sanliurfa province, southeast Turkey
Governor Celalettin Guvenc told Reuters that the blaze took place following a row between the inmates.
It took one-and-a-half hours before the blaze was extinguished, the news agency reports.
Those detained at Sanliurfa include political prisoners, reports say.
Ibrahim Ayhan, a member of parliament from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), was among those in the jail but was not believed to have been harmed, broadcaster NTV said.
Two of the biggest ever wildfires in the US have hit states of Colorado and New Mexico and hundreds of firefighters have joined efforts to tackle them.
The Colorado blaze shrouded the state capital, Denver, some 60 miles (100 km) away in smoke on Tuesday.
A woman has died in the blaze, which has burned about 43,000 acres (68 sq miles) and is still growing.
A huge fire is also burning in New Mexico – one of a total of 19 fires in nine drought-stricken western states.
The Larimer County Sheriff’s Office said on Monday that one person had died in Colorado, after investigators found remains in a home that had been burned in the fire.
Two of the biggest ever wildfires in the US have hit states of Colorado and New Mexico and hundreds of firefighters have joined efforts to tackle them
Although the remains have not been conclusively identified, the family of Linda Steadman, 62, has issued a statement saying she died in a cabin that she loved.
They reported her missing after the fire started on Saturday, sheriff’s officials said.
President Barack Obama called the Colorado governor to offer federal personnel, equipment and emergency grants – but was unable to reach his New Mexico counterpart due to poor reception in the fire zone, the Associated Press reported.
The High Park Fire – as it has been dubbed – is still growing, with only 5% contained, reported a national incident information website.
The same website says 30% of the 36,000-acre (56-sq-mile) Little Bear Fire in New Mexico has been contained.
About 118 structures have been damaged or destroyed by the blaze in Colorado – believed to have been started by lightning – and hundreds of people were forced to evacuate, officials say.
Some 600 firefighters are on the scene and up to 200 more are expected.
Additional resources have had to be called in as state and federal authorities rushed to tackle the blaze.
The US Forest Service said on Monday it would contract one air tanker from Alaska and four from Canada to add to the aircraft already combating the fire. Two more air tankers were also being mobilized in California.
Five of the forest service’s 13 tankers have already been deployed to the scene, a spokesman said.
Congressmen from Colorado said in a letter to the forest service that the need for more aircraft was “dire”.
But incident commander Bill Hahnenberg told the Associated Press: “We are a very high priority nationally. We can get all the resources we want and need.”
[youtube nS21ikDhV58]
An Austrian crematorium officials have blamed a deceased woman’s obesity for causing a fire which had to be tackled by firefighters.
Graz firemen were covered in thick sticky soot as they tried to prevent the blaze from taking hold of the building.
The case has been widely reported in Austrian media, including in the ORT, and has ignited calls for a weight limit on bodies to protect against future fires.
Some countries such as Switzerland and the UK already have facilities which cater for extra large bodies, in line with the growing trend of expanding waistlines.
An expert report on the Austria fire has revealed that the woman being cremated weighed more than 200 kg – or 31st 7 lbs – and her size had caused the oven to overheat.
An Austrian crematorium officials have blamed a deceased woman's obesity for causing a fire which had to be tackled by firefighters
The press reports state that the filter temperature reached 300 C and officials realized there was a problem when thick black smoke started billowing into the building.
The device was immediately switched off but by then there was already a fire in the filter.
Firemen whose clothing was left covered with a layer of greasy black soot were snapped as they tackled the difficult to extinguish blaze in special breathing gear to avoid breathing in the fumes.
In the end they had to bring the fire under control by sending a blast of water in through the vents used to clear the filter. Repair work took several days during which time the crematorium was out of action.
Firemen said that after reports of similar problems at other cemeteries not only in Austria but also in Switzerland, officials were now are considering a ban on larger bodies.
Graz based fireman Otto Widetschek said: “Crematorium officials need to be more responsible and not just automatically put everybody in to be cremated.”
He said that in Switzerland there were moves now to make sure that XXL bodies were routinely shipped to a special crematorium able to deal with the extra heat caused by larger bodies.
At least 13 people have been killed and another 13 were injured after a petrol tanker crashed bursting into flames and engulfing seven cars and a bus in burning fuel in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas.
Rescue workers have been pulling charred bodies from the scorched vehicles.
The tanker is reported to have flipped over after the driver lost control, spilling petrol that then caught fire. The cause of the accident is still under investigation.
Caracas fire department coordinator William Martinez said the crash sent a river of burning fuel down the Pan-American Highway west of Caracas, engulfing other vehicles.
The flames were so intense that vegetation beside the road also caught fire and nearby houses were threatened before the blaze was brought under control, William Martinez told Venezuelan National Radio.
Survivor Mariana Salas said the bus caught fire in a matter of seconds.
“People started to get out of cars, the traffic was paralyzed, nothing was moving in either direction,” she said.
“Around 15 or 20 of us opened a route through the vegetation and managed to save ourselves.”
President Hugo Chavez expressed dismay at the “lamentable tragedy”.
“I send my prayers to the victims of the accident on the Pan-American Highway. To their families my feelings of sadness and all necessary support,” Hugo Chavez wrote on Twitter.
