Dubai: She saw the reflection of the fire on the glass facade of the residential tower across from hers and that’s when Mariana Milusheva, a tenant of The Torch, realised how serious the situation was.
Residents were evacuated from The Torch Tower after a fire was said to have started on the 51st floor at 2am in the Dubai Marina area. Even as tenants were being escorted out of the tower, heavy winds spread the fire and debris rained from the sky, littering the ground.
“The fire spread really fast because of the strong winds,” said Milusheva. But help was at hand. Tenants were evacuated with remarkable speed and efficiency and everyone was accompanied out of the building safely. “[It] was very organised. Security staff knocked on doors and we were relocated to the Marriott Hotel where they gave us breakfast and blankets,” said Milusheva.
A resident on the 59th floor said that from the 28th floor and below, the main issue due to the fire was water damage while on the floors above, most of the damage was due to the fire. “I’m currently staying at the Holiday Inn for at least four days and I’ll be buying clothes since I don’t have any with me right now,” he said. “We’re still waiting for our agent to call with an update.”
After the situation was brought under control by the authorities, the next step was to enable tenants living on floors unaffected by the fire to return to their homes. Ahmad Al Atawi, a tenant on the 16th floor, said that the Civil Defence and police officers were escorting residents who live between the sixth and the 20th floors back into the Torch Tower in the first phase.
Al Atawi, a 36-year-old Egyptian, spoke of the overriding concern that gripped him — safety of his wife and 11-month-old baby — when the building’s security guards began to knock on each apaprtment door to alert them. “Security guards knocked on our doors several times after the alarms started ringing so we got dressed to leave,” he said. “I couldn’t think of anything else other than my wife and child’s safety, so I grabbed our passports and just left. I left my phone upstairs and we headed to the exit.”
Al Atawi spoke of the several drills and false alarms that take place throughout the year at The Torch which left them doubting the veracity of the fire alarm that, he says, went off at 2am.
“We usually have these false alarms so, when I heard this one, I thought I’ll just carry on sleeping because it was probably nothing,” he said. But for some reason, he says, he decided to check from his balcony to assure himself that everything was all right. “I found police cars and people standing downstairs so that was my signal to exit the building.”
Walking towards the Torch Tower in the morning haze and buffeting winds with a blanket in their hands were James and Ann Saunders, tenants on the 36th floor, who had been put up at Marriott Hotel until the coast was clear.
The evacuation, James says, was carried out in 20-25 minutes. “The building management, the Civil Defence and the Police were incredible, they were here way before we left the building,” he said. “I walked around here by 4.15am and the fire was definitely out by then.”
Saunders added that there was plenty of debris, especially around the corner by the Tram, but the streets had been cleaned up by the authorities. Overall, he said, he was very impressed with the way the Dubai officials handled the incident in every aspect.
At the scene of the incident, trucks full of mattresses unloaded in front of Princess Tower, the building across Torch Tower, for tenants who were offered refuge on its 97th floor. Other tenants, like the Saunders and Mariana Mulisheva, sought refuge at the Marriott Hotel which reached out to many of the affected.
Geeta and Ved Chhabra, both senior citizens who own a penthouse on the 91st floor of the neighbouring building, the Princess Tower, said they hope they would be able to make it to the ground floor safely in case of such an eventuality. Residents of Princess building had to also evacuate as a precautionary measure as the high winds held the danger of fanning the flames in its direction. “At 3.30am, I was alerted by my houseboy about the fire across in The Torch and, as I peered from our balcony, I was shocked to see the tower ablaze. I saw pregnant women and people with toddlers in arms and older people coming to our community hall.”
Four months ago, she recalls, when the fire alarm went off in her building, “I had to climb down 30 floors through the stairwell. I could do it as I am fit but I fear my husband, Ved, would not have been able to make it. Luckily, he was out of town,” said Geeta who feels tall buildings like these need helipads or at least special protocols for senior citizens. “I was told by our real estate representative that even a physically fit Olympic champion cannot hope to run down 91 storeys nimbly. So how can families with toddlers, senior citizens, people with knee problems or asthma and other conditions come down such high rises?”
The fire alarm in her building is so sensitive, she said, that even burnt toast can set it off. “There must be a system where people can differentiate between a real alarm from a false one.” Unless this happens, no one is going to take these alarms seriously,” she said.
With inputs from Suchitra Bajpai Chaudhary, Senior Reporter. Maria Botros is a trainee at Gulf News.
