Thirteen children and six adults were killed when a fire ripped through a shopping mall nursery in Qatar’s capital yesterday.
Firefighters had to break through the roof to get to trapped children after a staircase to the first-floor nursery collapsed, the state minister for the interior, Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser Al Thani, said.
Photographs posted online showed emergency workers on the roof of the mall running with children in their arms, handing them to firemen on ladders and using what appeared to be oxygen canisters to assist others.
Four of the teachers at the Gympanzee Kidz day care centre and two firefighters were also killed in the midday fire at Villaggio Mall.
Firefighters were at first not aware it was a nursery that was on fire. When it was realised children were trapped two of the firefighters rushed inside but were killed. It took rescue workers 20 minutes to reach the children.
“We tried our best, but when we got there, the children were trapped inside. We are very sorry for what happened. We tried as much as we could to save these people,” Sheikh Abdullah said.
The blaze left “19 dead, including 13 children – seven girls and six boys – in addition to four female teachers”, said the health minister Khaled Al Qahtani. Another 17 people, mostly rescue workers, were injured, according to authorities.President of the UAE Sheikh Khalifa, Vice President Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, all sent condolences. Condolences were also sent by Sheikha Fatima, widow of Sheikh Zayed, the founding President.
Witnesses reported thick black smoke that could be seen pouring from the building. The mall was evacuated and the fire was extinguished hours later.
Emergency workers were hampered by floor plans that did not have the right markings for entry and emergency exits and malfunctioning alarms and sprinklers. No one from Villaggio Mall attended the news conference.
A collapsed ceiling, heavy smoke and high temperatures also complicated the firefighters’ efforts, an official told Qatar TV. “So many dangers obstructed us,” he said.
The cause of the fire is unknown. Christine Wigton, an American who moved to Doha last year, told CNN she was walking in the mall planning to buy some food when she heard a buzzing noise. “As I walked back to where I had parked and heard a buzzer, not very loud, and a little bit of smoke, it looked like a store was having a small fire,” she said.“When I got a little bit closer I realised the smoke was just increasing and people were still shopping. And the smoke kept getting heavier and heavier.”
Elementary school-age children were eating at some of the restaurants and no one was evacuating, she said. “There were no sprinklers and nothing that would tell somebody something was wrong.”
Finally, the smoke became “too much, and I put my cardigan around my mouth”.
Ms Wigton made her way to the car park. “My throat was burning,” she said.
A relative of a two-year-old boy who died in the blaze commented on the mall’s lack of fire safety measures. “There does not seem to have been any fire alarms or sprinklers at the mall,” the man told Reuters, speaking from Qatar’s Hamad hospital.
The victims included people from Spain, Japan, the Philippines, Benin and Arab countries not including Qatar, the officials said.
Four children were Spanish, said a foreign ministry spokeswoman in Madrid.
The Villaggio opened in 2006, with more than 200 stores, and is one of Qatar’s most popular shopping and amusement destinations. It includes an ice-skating rink and indoor Venice-style gondola rides.
Mr Al Thani said that the “public prosecution has taken charge of the investigation” and that a broader investigation into safety requirements in buildings will be held.
About 180 emergency workers were involved in extinguishing the blaze and rescue efforts.
Officials said the mall will be closed indefinitely.
