NEW YORK, March 8: Eight children and one adult died in a fire that broke out in a small apartment building housing two African families in New York City’s Bronx borough, officials said on Thursday.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said 15 people were injured the fire that started late on Wednesday, New York’s deadliest since 1990 excluding the Sept 11, 2001, terror attacks.

“This was one small building, but one very large tragedy for our city,” Bloomberg said. “It just seems more painful and more unfair when children die. When children die, everyone around them seems to die a little as well.” He said 22 people lived in the four-story brick building, which was split into two apartments. The two families were from west Africa, he said, adding that one family came from Mali.

The fire started on the ground floor shortly before midnight and burned up to the next floor through the wooden stairs, trapping residents, the mayor said.

“It was an inferno,” a neighbour, Troy Erwin, 44, was quoted as saying in The New York Times. “Smoke everywhere.” An adult and eight children, from infants to a 10-year-old, were killed, he said. Some of the injured were in critical condition, while several fire-fighters and rescuers had small injuries.

Bloomberg said authorities were investigating reports that a desperate mother threw her three children out of a window before jumping.

The fire may have been started by a heater or an overloaded power strip, he said, adding that the smoke detectors did not work as they lacked batteries.—AFP