At least 12 people killed, including a child, in New York City apartment fire
A fire has swept through several floors of an apartment building in New York City, leaving 12 people dead, including an infant, while leaving four others critically injured.
The cause of the blaze in the New York City borough of Bronx was not immediately clear, but it began on the first floor and spread rapidly to the third floor, officials said.
"I'm sorry to report 12 New Yorkers are dead, including one child as young as one year old," New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters at the scene on Thursday.
De Blasio said that the death toll ranked as "one of the worst losses of life to a fire in many, many years" in the city.
Four people were in hospital in critical condition “fighting for their lives,” the mayor said. "We may lose others as well."
De Blasio noted that the victims range in age from one to more than 50 years old and a nearby school has been set up as a shelter to house those who were evacuated from the building.
The five-alarm fire broke out in the building in the city's northernmost borough at around 7:00 pm local time at night with temperatures well below freezing.
New York is going through a bitter cold snap and high winds, which according to one media account, stoked flames inside the building as residents flung open doors and windows.
Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro called the fire "historic in its magnitude" due to the number of lives lost.
Excluding the September 11, 2001 attacks, it was the worst fire in the city since 87 people were killed at a social club fire in the Bronx in 1990.
"Our hearts go out to every person who lost a loved one here and everyone who is fighting for their lives," Nigro said. The blaze broke out on the first floor of a five-story building just before 7 p.m. and quickly tore through the roughly century-old structure near the Bronx Zoo.
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