2 dead, 6 injured in Tokyo apartment building fire


Two people died and six others were injured in a fire that destroyed four floors of an apartment building in Tokyo's Koto Ward early Friday.

According to police and firefighters, the fire started at around 1 a.m. in the 5-story building in Toyo. TV Asahi reported that neighbors heard an explosion and saw a flash of blue flame and heavy black smoke coming from the 2nd floor.

Police said 41 fire engines were mobilized to fight the fire which took about 3 1/2 hours to extinguish.

Eight residents of the building were taken to hospital. Yuya Kawamura, 22, a student, and company employee Shotaro Date, 22, who both lived on the 4th floor, were pronounced dead on arrival.

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This had made international attention on Reddit, one of the largest English language discussion websites.

Video of the start of the fire.

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41 appliances? I can't imagine anyone in Koto ku got much sleep. 14 sounds about right.

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You have to take into consideration that due to the tight streets in some areas (a lot of places in Japan), fire engines tend to be a lot smaller. Take that into consideration and also that of sensationalism of most online 'rags' to pad numbers and you'd get half that number. Also, I bet they counted the chief's SUV and support vehicles not having any hose or water capabilities as a 'fire engine' as well.

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There's only so many fire apparatus you can position around a burning structure and a fire hydrant system can handle only so many hoses being supplied by it before water pressure is adversely affected. Unless some of those vehicles were "pumpers" feeding water from a lake or river to the close-in apparatus, it seems to me some of the vehicles were providing no help at all.

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wouldn't be surprised about 41 fire engines. they sent 11 around my old neighborhood for a suspected gas leak [that was never found, obviously...]

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tapi0ca, ever seen a fire in the likes of Shibuya/Shinjuku? literally fire vehicles as far as the eye can see. 41 does sound a bit much for a residential area but it seems to have still taken those 41 trucks 3.5hrs to get the fire out

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"41 fire engines"?

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Likely a gas line or canister explosion, though if a fire started that quickly after an explosion it's like the former after a gas build-up. Likely some crappy stove top. In nay case, sounds like the fire started on the second floor and the two killed on the fourth floor were probably sleeping and died of carbon monoxide poisoning. RIP. Hope they find the cause and everyone else recovers.

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