Nearly half a year has passed since the fatal March 23 fire at the Carina Plaza apartment complex on Vo Van Kiet Street in District 8, and arrests are still being made as part of the investigation into the blaze which killed 13 people.
According to VnExpress, last Wednesday city police arrested Nguyen Quoc Tuan, the complex's manager, and recommended that he be charged for "seriously violating fire safety regulations." Officials believe that Tuan knew the building's fire detection system was broken, and that he failed to repair it.
In April, Nguyen Van Tung, the former director of Hung Thanh Compay, the apartment's investor, was arrested for failing to comply with regulations. According to the news source, Tuan was assigned to oversee the complex in April of 2016, but he failed to properly fulfill his duties. A number of safety failures exacerbated the fire and its toll. For example, the fire alarms, automatic sprinklers and emergency lights were all out of order, while the fire escape doors were held open with bricks, allowing fire and smoke to ventilate through the staircase.
In addition to killing 13 residents, the fire destroyed 13 cars and 150 motorbikes. This was the deadliest fire in Saigon since the ITC catastrophe in 2002, which killed 60.
[Photo via Xe Va The Thao]
