TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – More than 100 residents were evacuated from a skyscraper in Tainan after flames were seen erupting from several floors, reports said Saturday.
The local fire service was informed around 7 p.m. that a fire had broken out inside a 23-story-tall building known as the Shihua Plaza.
As they reach the site in the city’s Anping District, they found flames visible on the sixth and fourteenth floors and moved on with the evacuation of residents, reports said. Fire fighters found smoke emanating from the first six floors, where they put out the fire by 8:20 p.m.
It was not clear how many people were trapped inside the building and what had caused the blaze, though a fire department officer was quoted as saying that wiring might have caught fire.
Later figures said 125 people had left the building and eight of them had been ferried to hospital. Most of them experienced breathing difficulties and sore throats or showed light burns, reports said.
The building also included the offices of a direct marketing company and a temple where an estimated 30 followers were gathered at the time of the fire, reports said.