Friday August 4, 2017
A large fire broke out in a Dubai high-rise early Friday local time, sending flaming debris raining below and prompting an evacuation, authorities said.
The building known as the Torch Tower was evacuated safely and there were no immediate reports of injuries, the government of Dubai’s media office said on Twitter.
Video showed flames on several floors up the side of the 79-story tower, which is one of the world’s tallest residential buildings.
An Associated Press journalist near the scene of early Friday's blaze said more than 40 floors of the high-rise tower appeared to be engulfed in flames on one side of the building. Residents of the building could be seen crying with several saying the fire broke just after 1 a.m. (5 p.m. Thursday ET).
The media office said shortly before 4 a.m. that the fire was brought under control and "cooling operations are underway."
The Torch Tower also caught fire in February of 2015.
A huge fire ripped through another Dubai skyscraper, the 63-floor luxury hotel the Address Downtown hotel, on New Year’s Eve as the years changed from 2015 to 2016, injuring 14 people.