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Dubai’s residential Torch Tower engulfed by flames for the second time in three years

No injuries have been reported.
No injuries have been reported. No injuries have been reported.

Firefighters have put out a blaze at one of the world’s tallest residential towers for the second time in three years.

Dubai’s Torch Tower caught fire just after 1am local time, with more than 40 floors of the 86-storey building burning on one side.

The blaze sent chunks of debris plummeting below while residents could be seen on the street outside, crying.

Dubai’s Civil Defence announced at about 3.30am that firefighters had brought the flames under control and that no injuries had been reported.

It was the second time in two-and-a-half years that the more than 1,100ft-tall (335m) tower has been ravaged by fire.

Fire damage on the Torch Tower the morning after (Kamran Jebreili/AP)
Fire damage on the Torch Tower the morning after (Kamran Jebreili/AP) (Kamran Jebreili/AP/PA Images)
Fire damage on the Torch Tower the morning after (Kamran Jebreili/AP)

The tower, located in the popular waterfront Marina district, caught fire in February 2015, but there were no major casualties reported in that blaze.

Several skyscrapers in the United Arab Emirates have caught fire in recent years, including a towering inferno that engulfed a 63-storey luxury hotel in Dubai on New Year’s Eve in 2016. In that blaze, as in others in Dubai in recent years, residents escaped without major injury.

Earlier this year, Dubai passed new fire safety rules requiring buildings with quick-burning side panelling to have it replaced with more fire-resistant material. Authorities have previously acknowledged that at least 30,000 buildings across the UAE have cladding or panelling that safety experts have said accelerates the rapid spread of fires.