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Dubai fire kills two, injures 57 workers - 19 January 2007

Investigators are beginning to look into the possible causes of a fire which engulfed a partially-built apartment block in Dubai today, killing two workers and injuring at least 40 others.

In scenes reminiscent of 9/11 in New York City, trapped workers on the upper floors of the building were seen waving towels and hanging off scaffolding as a helicopter tried and failed to land on the roof.

The main structure of the building, in the Jumeirah Lakes area of Dubai, had been completed when the blaze broke out at around 1230 local time (0730 GMT) Thursday. 4Homes News understands the worker who died fell from an external scaffolding structure while trying to escape the billowing black smoke and climb down to the ground.

Associated Press reported one resident, Louise Olson, as saying, “One guy in red was trying to climb down and then he just fell. It was horrible.”

Ambulance crews ferried the injured to hospital, though eyewitnesses say it took some time for them to respond to the emergency calls. Sources tell us that some of the wounded are in a serious condition in hospital. There were about 300 workers on the site at the time.

The tower is one of a cluster of buildings currently under construction in the Dubai’s Jumeirah Lakes area, all of which are over 30 stories tall. With many properties having been sold off-plan, and with an estimated 69,000 residential units coming onto the market this year, this is the first major setback in the runaway success of the Emirate.

The nearby Palm Jumeirah is due to be completed later this year, building on the new airport is continuing apace, and it is estimated that up to 33 per cent of the world’s cranes are in Dubai. Construction standards are not generally seen as poor or conditions unsafe, though many workers are brought in from the Indian subcontinent to service the huge manpower demands of this massive project.

New laws were recently introduced to improve the workers’ conditions, and to counter criticism of exploitation in the rapidly-expanding construction sector. The fire will also inevitably lead to concerns over the ability over the emergency services to handle incidents in the hundred of high-rise buildings currently under construction.

 

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