Nineteen people, nine of them children, have been killed in an apartment fire in New York City.
Key points:
- Officials said a total of 60 were injured, 32 of whom were hospitalized
- The cause of the fire is currently unknown
- It took 200 firefighters to put out the fire
New York Mayor Eric Adams said 19 people had died from the fire that broke out around 11 a.m. Sunday local time in a 19-story apartment building in the Bronx neighborhood.
Officials had previously said 32 people had been hospitalized with life-threatening injuries and about 60 people were injured in total.
“Right now we have 19 people who have been confirmed dead and we have more who are in critical condition,” Adams said in an interview with CNN.
Nine of the dead were children, the New York Times reported.
About 200 firefighters helped put out the fire. The cause was not immediately known, the city’s fire department, Commissioner Daniel Nigro, told reporters at a Sunday news briefing.
“Members found victims on each floor in stairwells and took them out with cardiac and respiratory arrest,” he said.
Sir. Nigro said the smoke had spread to every floor of the building, probably because the door to the apartment where it started was open and that the victims had suffered from significant smoke inhalation.
Reuters
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