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New Year celebrations turn awry in Dubai with fire at luxury hotel

New Year celebrations turn awry in Dubai with fire at luxury hotel

By :  DC Correspondent
Update: 2016-01-01 05:24 GMT
A huge fire ripped through a luxury Dubai hotel Thursday night, injuring 16 people, just a few hours before the emirate celebrated the new year with a spectacular fireworks display nearby.
Authorities said earlier Thursday that they had deployed thousands of security personnel to ensure visitors and residents could enjoy the New Year's festivities safely.
The hotel is one of the tallest buildings in Dubai, with seven lounges and restaurants as well as a beauty spa, according to its website. 
 
Another witness who asked not to be named and was near the hotel area told AFP that New Year's Eve event organisers and security personnel "started panicking and were screaming and ushering people" into the nearby Dubai Mall, one of the world's
A video circulating on social media showed anxious shoppers at the huge nearby Dubai Mall as they rushed to get out, with a woman shouting: "Folks don't run... don't panic".
"What was strange is that the fire was disappearing and then reappearing again," said Mohammed al-Majed, a Saudi tourist who was at the restaurant around a kilometre (mile) away. "It was mainly concentrated in the middle of the building."
Witness Raphael Slama told AFP the fire started at around 9:30 pm (1730 GMT) and rapidly spread upwards across dozens of floors. An AFP photographer at the scene said "it began in the middle of the hotel, then went down like lightning before
Dubai's police chief said all the residents of the five-star hotel had been evacuated from the scene of the blaze, the cause of which was unknown and which had still not been extinguished some four hours after it broke out. 
The Address Downtown hotel, which is a few blocks from the iconic Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest tower, was engulfed in flames across several floors as sirens wailed and helicopters hovered overhead, witnesses said.
New Year celebrations turn awry in Dubai with fire at luxury hotel

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