Fire in Taiwan building kills at least 46 and injured dozens

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An early morning fire in a residential and commercial building in the city of

in southern Taiwan, left at least 46 dead and 41 hospitalized on Thursday.

Government spokeswoman Li Litai confirmed to Efe in a telephone conversation that the latest update of the number of victims, at 4.30 pm local time (08.30 GMT time), is

of which 46 perished and the rest remain hospitalized.

The ages of the latter - Li specified - are

, all rescued by a rescue operation made up of 159 troops and 75 vehicles, and whose work had concluded around 5:00 p.m. local time (09:00 GMT time) .

The Kaohsiung Fire Department considered that

and that the high death toll was partially due to the fact that the damaged 13-high building was

and people with dementia and disability, which would have made it difficult for them to escape.

"When the firefighters arrived (at the scene) they saw that there was a large fire on the ground floor," Li said by phone.

The rescuers considered the fire "virulent", according to a statement published by the body, whose employees were fighting the fire for about four and a half hours until it was completely extinguished.

Deaths from poisoning

According to the source, the fire ended up devouring and destroying the interiors of the building between the ground floor and the fourth floor of the block, which is estimated to house about 130 people and which was in a

The photographs published by the local press show that part of the building, located on Fubei Avenue, completely charred.

The Taiwanese press added that

from the fire on the lower floors was responsible for many of the poisoning deaths on the upper floors.

Taiwanese spokeswoman Li also indicated that "an investigation has been started to find out the causes" of the fire and that no preliminary conclusions have been made public at the moment.

For their part,

before the fire started.

The official Taiwanese CNA news agency noted that firefighters had conducted two full rounds of search and rescue for survivors in the building.

"I was very lucky"

A resident named Mao told CNA how he and some of his neighbors, residents on the ninth floor, were able to get out on their own.

The survivor described waking up in the middle of the night as a result of the noise and screaming outside the building, and was able to observe blackish smoke outside the window.

"I left the house immediately with my cell phone and took an elevator without thinking twice," he

said, but once he reached the ground floor he found that the fire blocked the exits.

In the end, he and other neighbors managed to get out of the building from one of the basements.

"I was very lucky. I hope other neighbors came out safely too," he said.

According to CNA, the fire spread through the residential building and 13-storey shopping center starting at 2:54 am local time today (6:54 pm GMT this Wednesday), it was controlled two hours later and the firefighters ended up extinguishing it at 07.17 local time (23.17 GMT this Wednesday).

The damaged building was built 40 years ago and had

commercial premises - many of them, now abandoned - on the first levels and houses on the upper floors.

According to the Chinese state press, there were a total of

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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