Wealthy residents of Dubai’s Torch Tower have revealed how they fled from the burning 1,100ft building in just ten minutes thanks to its smoke free escape routes – in stark contrast to victims of London‘s Grenfell Tower disaster.
Fire ‘spread rapidly’ through one of the world’s tallest residential towers sparking panic among terrified residents – including dozens of Britons – after a day when temperatures in the city climbed to 45C (113F).
Alarming footage showed flames climbing up the outside of the 86-storey skyscraper, a building popular with expats in the United Arab Emirates tourism hotspot.
Burning debris could be seen crashing down to the ground below as tearful residents fled and firefighters desperately tackled the blaze.
The same skyscraper was devastated by fire in 2015 and the building’s flammable cladding, which was similar to that used in Grenfell Tower, was blamed for fuelling the flames. Unlike the inferno in West London in June, in which at least 80 died, residents of the Torch were able to escape unharmed with only a few people treated for smoke inhalation
Horrified residents this morning described how they woke to screaming and fire alarms after a blaze broke out on the 63rd floor. It is understood to have spread across 40-storeys of the 676-flat building, where apartments start at £381,000. The cause of the fire is not yet known.
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