At least 10 other people have died after a fire broke out at a disused hotel used as a makeshift shelter for the homeless in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, authorities said.
Rescuers on Friday found 10 victims in Garoa Floresta, which was operating without authorization, according to firefighters in Rio Grande do Sul state.
The fire broke out around 2 a. m. local time (0500 GMT), the government said. It took firefighters approximately 3 hours to get the situation under control.
“Forensic experts are on site to identify the victims and investigate the cause of the fire,” the fire department said in a statement.
Porto Alegre Mayor Sebastiao Melo wrote in X that several injured people were rescued and taken to the hospital, but did not specify how many.
On Friday, the health government put the number of injured at 13, some of them in good condition.
Images shared through Brazilian media overnight showed the building engulfed in flames as firefighters battled to extinguish the blaze.
“I had time to put on my flip-flops and run away. My sister, who lived on the third floor, ended up burned alive,” Marcelo Wagner Schelech, 56, told local newspaper Zero Hora.
“It happened very quickly. People were shouting “Fire! When I saw him, he was already two doors away from me. I ran out as fast as I could, because there was already a lot of smoke,” said an unidentified resident of the building. he told the G1 news site.
The state’s governor, Eduardo Leite, has pledged to the incident.
“Firefighters sent trucks and dozens of firefighters to fight the flames,” he wrote on social media.
“We will continue to investigate the consequences of this tragedy and investigate the causes. My deepest condolences to the victims.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sent his condolences to the families of the victims, in a message on social media that the tragedy left him “saddened. “
Meanwhile, state lawmaker Matheus Gomes accused the city government of investing in the homeless shelter, even though it had faced reports of non-compliance with regulations “for years. “
“It will be necessary to investigate not only the fire, but also the entire chronicle of this foretold tragedy,” Gomes wrote in X.
The construction is by the Garoa Group, which owns at least 10 small hotels in Porto Alegre.
In 2022, a fire broke out at a hotel that killed one user and injured 11 others.