According to the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security, the suspected perpetrator confessed to setting a fire after an argument with employees.
Police say eleven people were killed and two others injured in a suspected arson attack on a cafe and karaoke bar in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security said Thursday it had arrested a man who confessed to starting the fire on the ground floor of the building after an argument with staff.
Rescue workers who rushed to the scene of the accident brought seven people out of the building alive, two of whom were taken to the hospital, police said.
Footage shared on social media showed a multi-story building engulfed in flames as firefighters worked at the scene while surrounded by a crowd of onlookers.
“At that time, we saw many people screaming for help, but we could not approach because the fire was spreading very quickly and we could not climb up even with a ladder,” the Lao Dong newspaper quoted a witness as saying.
The Tien Phong newspaper quoted a witness as saying that there was a strong smell of gasoline at the crime scene.
“Everyone was shouting at the residents to run outside, but no one was shouting for help,” the witness said.
CCTV footage published by news site VnExpress appeared to show a man carrying a bucket towards the cafe seconds before the fire broke out shortly after 11pm (1600 GMT) on Wednesday.
Fires are a common danger in Vietnam’s densely populated urban centers.
According to the Ministry of Public Security, around 17,000 house fires in the country killed 433 people between 2017 and 2022, most of them in urban areas.
In September last year, 56 people, including four children, were killed and dozens injured in a fire in an apartment block in Hanoi.
In October this year, a court in the southern province of Binh Duong convicted six people, including four police officers, over security failures related to a fire at a karaoke complex that killed 32 people in 2022.
