HANOI: A Vietnamese court jailed eight people on Friday over a fire that tore through a Hanoi apartment block in 2023, killing 56 in the country’s deadliest blaze in two decades.
The building had only a single exit and no emergency ladder on the outside. Neighbours and residents reported hearing screams as people struggled to escape the flames through barred windows.
The owner of the nine-storey block deserved “the most serious punishment” for the blaze in September 2023, the court in Hanoi said, convicting him of violating fire prevention regulations and jailing him for 12 years.
However, victims’ relatives said the sentence should have been longer.
Families were prevented from talking to the media outside the courthouse. One crying woman who was shouting that the sentence was not fair was pushed away.
“I am not happy with the verdict,” said Le Van, whose brother, sister-in-law and their child were killed in the blaze.
“They should be punished even more for what they have done to us,” she said by phone, fighting back tears.
The couple’s other child survived, she said, but had been forced to leave the capital to live with relatives in the countryside.
The actions of the apartment block owner Nghiem Quang Minh were “very dangerous”, the verdict said, “causing especially serious consequences in human lives and material damage”.
One of the four sides of the building, which was down a narrow alley in a densely populated area of the capital, had no windows at all and another had only tiny ventilation slots.
“Among those dead and injured were several children and people of the same family, causing huge pain,” the court said.
