At night, racing through fire and smoke to save people in a mini apartment

At 11:40 p.m. on September 12, three minutes after receiving the notification, three fire trucks blew their sirens and left the headquarters of the Hanoi City Police Department of Fire Prevention, Fighting and Rescue (PC07) on

Knowing that the fire was in a mini apartment building, the entrance was usually very narrow, the first floor was reserved for parking, their intuition and professional experience told them that the fire tonight would be serious.

Fire fighters and rescuers at the scene of the fire, early morning of September 13.

The police divided into many approaches.

At this time, the apartment building about 8 meters wide, 30 meters deep, and 10 floors high caught fire fiercely, lighting up a corner of the street.

Lieutenant Duong Van Linh said that while a group of teammates concentrated on the 4th floor, deployed hose lines, and prevented the fire from spreading to the upper floors, he and his teammates began the rescue.

Lieutenant Duong Van Linh.

Accustomed to the physical exercises of climbing houses with their bare hands, the four soldiers used ropes to climb to the 4th floor, carrying cutting tools and force pliers to break open the tiger’s cage to rescue the people inside, while below their teammates continued to use their hands.

Inside, the walls were blackened by smoke, the scene was chaotic.

Mr. Linh’s teammate, Lieutenant Pham Truong Tuan Anh, put on a gas mask and followed a rope ladder that someone had used to escape before to try to climb to the 5th floor, where four people were screaming for help on the balcony.

`Please let me jump, I have to jump or I’ll die,` the man, his wife and two children, their faces black from the smoke, said trembling.

He gave gas masks to the couple and their daughter, then placed the months-old baby in a red bucket and passed it to the paramedics at the window next door.

Lieutenant Pham Truong Tuan Anh.

Intending to reach a higher area from the 5th floor stairs, they had to skip it because of the heat. The rescue team chose to climb the terrace next door.

Climbing up and down twice in a row, they only quickly gulped water, then rushed back to look for survivors when their teammates had finished extinguishing the fire at 1:00 a.m. on September 13.

The apartment building has more than 40 apartments on 9 floors, of which the 7th and 8th floors have the most victims.

Taking this victim out was very dangerous, because the two soldiers only had exactly 15 cm of wall space to stand on and create a safety belt.

Fire police at the scene

Police rescue lines to save people in distress on high floors.

`There were people in the bathroom, under the bed, hiding in the closet, and not everyone was brave enough to wear a safety belt and follow us down. They were very panicked,` Lieutenant Linh said.

At 5:00 a.m., the search for survivors ended and switched to taking the dead victims out.

The blankets that wrapped the equipment on the vehicle and the blankets brought by people were used to wrap the victims and take them out.

Over 10 years in the profession, people like Mr. Tam, Mr. Linh, and Tuan Anh do not count the number of fires they have put out nor the number of people they have saved with their teammates.

Two days after the rescue, the firefighters’ faces had washed away the black soot, but their throats were still dry from inhaling smoke.