Takenfrom Diario Libre USA
NEW YORK - Two Dominicans who live in the building that caught fire this Sunday in the Bronx, New York, leaving 19 dead and more than 60 injured, told how they managed to save their lives.
"There were many children crying 'Help, help, help!'", Dominican Dilenny Rodriguez , 38, who escaped with her 10-year-old son down the stairs from the 12th floor, told AFP
Another Dominican who managed to survive the worst tragedy of this kind in New York City in the last three decades was Miguel Enrique.
The man, who has asthma, told AFP that he only had time to grab his jacket and take the elevator down from the 13th floor. "I was going to take the stairs, but I couldn't see anything, so I pressed the elevator button," he said, standing next to his brother José at the shelter, which he believes "saved his life."
Enrique was yesterday with his brother and dozens of survivors, many with their pets, in an adjacent school, set up as a shelter, where the American Red Cross provided them with food and blankets.
Like them, everyone was now waiting for the firefighters' approval to be able to return to sleep in their homes or collect essential medicines or clothing.
Images released on the FDNY's Twitter account show flames crowned by a thick column of black smoke emerging from a second-floor window of this brown brick building.
A heater caused the fire
The fire broke out around 11:00 a.m. in building 333 on East 181st Street in Fordham Heights. According to Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro, the fire was caused by a faulty space heater.
Nigro said the fire "started in a malfunctioning electric heater" in an apartment unit occupying the second and third floors of the 19-story building. The apartment door was left open, allowing smoke to spread rapidly throughout the building, Nigro said.
The disaster comes just four days after a fire in Philadelphia killed 12 people, including eight children, in a three-story public housing complex, in what was one of the deadliest recent fires in the United States.
