Dubai Hotel Fire Fails to Ground New Year's Fireworks Show

Dubai -- Firefighting teams have extinguished a blaze that disrupted New Year's Eve festivities in Dubai's city centre, a security official was quoted as saying Friday by the al-Khaleej newspaper.

The fire at The Address Downtown Hotel - which lies near the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building - created dissonant images late Thursday, with new year's revelries continuing even as the 63-storey building burned.

"The fire was brought under complete control just half an hour before the new year started," chief of Dubai police Khamis Matar said.

"The hotel was evacuated of all guests and employees. The nearby area was also evacuated from people for safety reasons."

There were 16 injuries, local media reported on Friday. They were all related to the stampede of people trying to escape the fire or to smoke inhalation, the Dubai government media Office said.

The official Emirates News Agency (WAM) said that the country's Interior Minister Saif bin Zayed had supervised efforts to extinguish the fire from the Dubai Police Command Management Centre.

The cause of the blaze was not clear.

Witnesses said the fire prompted the evacuation of several nearby skyscrapers.

"I was having dinner in the area when we were asked by the civil defence to leave - then we notice the fire," Ahmed Ramdan, a local resident, said.

Randa, another resident, told dpa: "We heard a loud bang and then saw the fire. I was afraid the whole hotel will collapse on our heads."

Television broadcasts and images on social media showed flames engulfing multiple floors of the hotel, which stands in an area where thousands of people were gathering to watch the New Year's Eve fireworks.

Dubai authorities said the fire started on the 20th floor of the five-star hotel before spreading to the building's exterior.

The Dubai-based Gulf News newspaper, citing witnesses, said the fire started as a small blaze at the Address Downtown Hotel, on a side facing the Burj Khalifa.

Soon the fire spread upward, fanned by strong winds, according to the report.

The hotel is connected to the upmarket Dubai Mall.

Despite the inferno, New Year's Eve fireworks went ahead as scheduled at midnight (2000 GMT) from the Burj Khalifa, illuminating the sky over the city.

Thousands of Dubai's residents and visitors turned out on the streets to enjoy a spectacular 20-minute fireworks display.

In February, thousands of people were evacuated from a 79-storey residential building in Dubai after a fire broke out in the tower. No fatalities were reported at the time.

Dubai, a regional business and media hub, is famous for its skyscrapers.

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