New York City officials have revised down from 19 to 17 the death toll from a fire that broke out in a high-rise apartment in the Bronx yesterday.
Mayor Eric Adams told reporters it was now known that nine adults and eight children had been killed in Sunday's blaze, one of America's worst residential infernos in recent memory.
Initially, Mr Adams had said ten adults and nine children had perished in the fire that New York fire chief Daniel Nigro said was caused by a portable electric heater.
Dozens more people were injured in the fire, which started around 11am (local time) on the third floor of a 19-story apartment building on East 181st Street.
Mr Nigro attributed the first reported number to "a bit of a double count," adding the death toll could still change because of the wounded.
"This number could unfortunately increase again," he told reporters.
Mr Nigro said that smoke, not fire, had caused the deaths and serious injuries.
The fire originated in a duplex apartment, the door of which had been left open, allowing the smoke to spread, officials say.
"If we take one message from this (disaster), it's close the door," said Mr Adams.
The mainly working class borough of the Bronx is home to a large number of immigrants and many of the building's residents had moved to New York from Gambia.
"This is a global tragedy because the Bronx is representative of ethnicities and cultures across the globe," said Mr Adams.
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Witnesses reported seeing trapped residents screaming for help from windows during the fire, which the city's fire chief said was caused by a portable electric heater, leaving victims on "every floor".
"There were a lot of kids crying, 'Help! Help! Help!'" 38-year-old Dilenny Rodriguez, who escaped with her children, told AFP.
Photographs and video posted on social media showed flames and thick black smoke billowing out of a third-storey window of the brick building at East 181st Street as firefighters operated on a nearby ladder.
"The fire alarm of course started and then, everywhere was smoke," said Mohamed Trawalley, 49, a resident of the building.
"So it was definitely devastating. A lot of smoke. Until now, when I clear my throat, all I see is black mucus. It was so serious, I've never seen anything like it before."
"It was chaos," George King, who lives directly adjacent to the building, said.
"I've been here 15 years and it's the first time I've seen something like this."
The injured were taken to five hospitals; many suffered from cardiac and respiratory arrest and severe smoke inhalation, officials said.
Michael Joseph, 32, who lives in the building, said it took him around 30 minutes to reach the hallway and then get down six flights of stairs because of how thick the smoke was.
"Actually due to all the smoke, and just inhaling it, it's just so thick. And it's like you cannot breathe, it's like you're being suffocated."
Ms Rodriguez, a woman who escaped the fire with her children, said the smoke was so thick when she went down that "we couldn't see".
"They took my daughter away from me and I got panicked. Once I was walking the stairs, I saw a body on the floor that they tried to rescue," she said.
19 people, including a number of children, have been killed in an apartment fire in the Bronx in New York City. Around 200 firefighters were involved in fighting the blaze at an apartment block on 181st Street | Read more: https://t.co/doMHilXc7M pic.twitter.com/Xa3IaO8rKG
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) January 9, 2022
Mayor Adams, who only took office on 1 January, said the fire was "truly a tragedy," adding that many residents had been displaced.
"This is really a horrific day for us," he said.
The fire was the worst in New York City since a blaze at Happy Land nightclub in the Bronx in 1990, which killed 87 people and had been caused by arson.
In December 2017, 13 people were killed in a fire in an apartment building in the Bronx.
