Terrifying moment when desperate parents throw and jump their children from the windows of the tower to escape the fire raging in a 16th floor residential building in Kazakhstan
Terrifying moment when desperate parents throw and jump their children from the windows of the tower to escape the fire raging in a 16th floor residential building in Kazakhstan
- WARNING: TERRIBLE CONTENT
- 31 people were taken to hospital after an inferno swept through a tower block
Terrifying footage shows residents of a burning apartment building in Kazakhstan throwing their children out of windows only to be caught by people below.
The fire destroyed the 16-storey residential building in Almaty, the country’s largest city, after cables caught fire in an elevator shaft between the fifth and sixth floors.
About 300 people were evacuated from the burning building today, but some on the higher floors were thrown out or jumped as the inferno enveloped the block.
Footage shows gruesome images of young people falling from windows and being grabbed onto mattresses and sheets by those on the floor.
A young resident was also seen climbing from a window on the top floor onto a platform that had been lifted some 50 meters above the ground by crane.
A youth falls from a height as an inferno hurtles through the tower block
Another person falls from a height while people are waiting on the floor with a mattress
Footage shows a woman jumping out of a window to escape a fire at an apartment building in Almaty
It’s unclear how many were thrown or jumped out of the building.
According to reports, emergency stairs could not be used because residents had blocked them.
As many as 31 people were taken to hospitals in the city, including 16 children.
According to initial reports, there have been no deaths.
Firefighters later brought tall rescue ladders to reach the upper floors of the building, allowing 40 people to be safely lowered to the ground.
Residents were filmed emerging from windows and precariously climbing down ladders, before climbing separate extended ladders – to reach the ground.
Video still showed smoke billowing from the building as residents tried to escape.
The fire was eventually extinguished with 50 firefighters and three ladders.
Emergency services released a statement after the incident: “At 5:10 PM on August 1, Department of Emergency troops were dispatched to Alatau district.
“Six minutes later, upon arrival, an apartment on the fifth floor of a 16-story residential building was found ablaze with open flames.”
They said it took about an hour and a half to put out the fire.
Earlier today, it took firefighters about an hour and a half to extinguish the blaze
A man exits a window and begins to climb down a ladder as flames envelop the building
In May 2022, a video captured the moment when a 37-year-old hero rescued a three-year-old girl hanging from a window of a Kazakh high-rise.
Sabit Shontakbaev, 37, was on his way to work with a friend when he saw a crowd staring at the three-year-old below.
Her mother had gone shopping and left her home alone in Kazakhstan’s capital Nur-Sultan when she piled up her toys and pillows to climb out the window.
Sabit, a father of four, immediately rushed upstairs to save her before she fell to her death.
He ran into the block and went up to the seventh floor, to the flat directly below where the girl was hanging precariously.
“We knocked and luckily they opened right away,” he said.
He climbed out the window under the terrified girl who had held on for 15 minutes by then.