Early on Tuesday morning, residents of several apartment buildings on Sorotzkin Street, a main thoroughfare in a haredi neighborhood in Jerusalem, were woken by the sounds of explosions. Upon discovering that a massive fire had broken out in the parking area beneath one of the buildings, and was rapidly spreading to neighboring buildings, dozens of families attempted to flee the blaze and the smoke.
It took twelve fire fighting teams to bring the fire under control, disperse the smoke, and rescue entire families trapped in their homes as the smoke penetrated their buildings. Twenty vehicles were destroyed in the blaze, and several apartments suffered severe damage. Fortunately, no serious injuries were reported.
“We woke up to the sound of explosions,” Yitzhak, a local resident, told the haredi news website Behadrey Haredim. “The entire building filled with smoke. Once we realized what was happening, we woke up the children and fled. Our apartment was badly damaged, but we are grateful to G-d that none of the children was harmed – it was a huge miracle.”
Another local resident was woken by the smoke itself. “My wife and I rushed to check on the kids, and then we tried to get out of the building, but it was too late by then – the entire stairwell was full of smoke. So we went back into our apartment and shut ourselves into an inner room and waited to be rescued. We were waiting for over two hours.”
He added that, “My car, which was parked in the parking lot downstairs, was totally destroyed, along with many other vehicles, and unfortunately I don’t have insurance. But this could have ended as a far greater disaster. We still don’t know what caused it.”
Dozens of people were injured in the blaze, most due to smoke inhalation but others due to escaping their homes by jumping from windows, leading to mostly light wounds. Four people were taken to Shaare Zedek Medical Center for treatment, and two to Hadassah hospital.
The Jerusalem district fire department has already begun an investigation into the causes of the fire, which are not yet clear, and the municipality will be providing assistance to residents whose homes were too severely damaged to be habitable.