Smoke choked the Linkeroever neighborhood as firefighters raced to rescue residents from upper floors, while authorities probe the blaze\u2019s unclear origin.<\/p>\n
In the Belgian city of Antwerp, a multi-storey apartment building caught fire; at least five people have died, and many others were injured. The fire broke out early this morning on the eighth floor, where more than 200 residents live, in the Linkeroever district, creating thick smoke in the air.<\/p>\n
Timeline of events and government response<\/p>\n
At this time, unfortunately, at least five people have died as a result of the fire. A significant number of seriously injured have also been reported, along with several with minor injuries.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Kim Bastiaens<\/p>\n
The ten-story building was evacuated, and residents were advised to keep windows and doors closed and, if necessary, turn off the ventilation because of the dense smoke.<\/p>\n
Firefighters battled the blaze in difficult conditions; several crews and police units arrived at the scene, and a drone unit was also deployed to survey the situation.<\/p>\n
The cause of the fire has not yet been determined; according to a spokesperson, the blaze started on the first floor, and experts are inspecting the scene.<\/p>\n
A medical assistance plan has been activated to prevent overloading local hospitals and to provide rapid aid to the injured.<\/p>\n
A reporter on the scene noted that the smoke began to ease by noon, though many firefighters remained on site.<\/p>\n
Television footage also showed an incident where a man on the top floor was surrounded by smoke and dangled from a balcony in an attempt to breathe fresh air, after which he reached a nearby window.<\/p>\n
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the rescue services who are trying to help many of the injured as quickly and safely as possible, and who are diligently working to bring the fire under control.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Bart De Wever<\/p>\n
Linkeroever \u2013 the eastern part of Antwerp, a large residential district with high-rise buildings, which borders a large park where open-air concerts are usually held.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Smoke choked the Linkeroever neighborhood as firefighters raced to rescue residents from upper floors, while authorities probe the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[19,14572,14612,14613,5709,14580,144],"class_list":["post-25231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-antwerp","tag-antwerp","tag-antwerp-fire","tag-apartment-building-fire","tag-belgium-emergency-response","tag-evacuation","tag-linkeroever-blaze","tag-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116845172796578899","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}