Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters
Dubai’s luxury Downtown Address skyscraper hotel became engulfed in a blaze stretching more than 20 floors Thursday evening. At around 9:30 p.m. local time, the fire began to consume multiple floors of the building. Pictures and videos have sprung up all over social media showing the fire as it grew. Fireworks had not yet been detonated for New Year’s Eve celebrations in the city, and the cause of the fire is unknown. The Address hotel is 991 feet tall, is the sixth-tallest building in the city, and the 36th-tallest in the world.
A police chief told Al Arabiya television that all the residents of the hotel were safely evacuated and that only 14 people experienced light injuries. An unidentified medic, however, told Reuters that more than 60 people were injured, albeit with light smoke inhalation injuries.