A fire wich started before midnight on Tuesday in the motorbike parking floor of the building, located down a narrow alley in a densely populated area of southwest Hanoim in Vietnam, killed 56 people, burned alive, including ten children, in an apartment tower. Thirty-seven other people were also injured. State media said on Thursday that an initial investigation found the 10-storey block had breached its construction licence. The owner of the building was arrested on charges of violating fire prevention laws. It was the country’s deadliest blaze in two decades and the government adopted measures to prevent that such tragedies occur in the future.
Police have been asked “to inspect fire prevention systems of mini apartment blocks and highly populated rent places”. To meet the demands for accommodation, Vietnam in 2014 legalised small apartment blocks, known locally as “mini apartments”, mostly owned and built by private individuals.
