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Dubai: Hundreds of survivors of the Naif townhouse blaze that claimed 11 lives queued outside the building on Friday waiting for permission from the police to look for their belongings.
Tuesday's fire made hundreds of workers mainly from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh homeless. Many of those workers gathered outside the building to search for belongings in what used to be their home.
Couple of hours
Police had informed the workers through Naif Police Station that they would allow people to enter the building for a couple of hours on Friday afternoon.
Bachelors stood among the remains of charred wood, washing machines, stoves and mobile phones. Police let in five people at a time to take whatever the fire had spared.
"We cannot let everybody in at the same time as we need to ensure that the right items go to the right people so this is why we are asking for identification documents and noting down what people are taking carefully," said a policeman at the site.
Workers were taking every thing they could find including salt and pots with food which had been lying around since Tuesday, others were luckier as their televisions and fans had survived.
Two half-full buckets of water were lying beside one of the taps located in the middle of the first floor, a reminder that the fire that broke out in the early morning interrupted some during their morning bathing.
In each of the many small rooms which were separated by partitions were the remains of more than ten beds indicating the overcrowded conditions.
The remains of shoes, work overalls, pots, mobile phones, CDs and half burnt family pictures were scattered everywhere.
"I know that we lived in bad conditions but it was at least a roof over our heads. Now many of us are forced to sleep in parks and other sheltered places," said one of the workers.
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