Fire is engulfing a high-rise residential tower in Dubai in the middle of the night, sending plumes of smoke into the air and debris falling below. Dubai’s police say firefighters are on the scene and that no injuries have been reported so far in the blaze at the Torch Tower, located in the popular Marina neighbourhood.
The Torch Tower is one of the world’s tallest residential towers reaching more than 80 storeys high. It caught fire in early 2015 with no major casualties reported in that blaze. Fires have affected several skyscrapers in the United Arab Emirates.
They include a towering inferno that engulfed a 63-storey luxury hotel in Dubai on New Year’s Eve in 2016.
Building and safety experts have cited a popular type of cladding covering the buildings that can be highly flammable. A devastating tower fire in London in June killed at least 80 people and prompted Britain to order more thorough testing on the cladding systems of its towers.
An Associated Press journalist near the scene of early Friday’s blaze said more than 40 floors of the high-rise tower appeared to be engulfed in flames on one side of the building. Residents of the building could be seen crying with several saying the fire broke just after 1am local time.
Dubai police cordoned off the area around the building, keeping people about a block away from the fire and the falling debris. “Dubai Civil Defense has successfully evacuated the Torch Tower and is working to bring the fire under control,” Dubai’s official media office said in a tweet.
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