Fire engulfs The Address Hotel, Dubai on New Year ’s Eve

A huge fire engulfed a Dubai skyscraper, The Address Hotel, on Thursday just hours before New Year's celebrations with a number of explosions heard in and around the building. The massive blaze quickly shot up the 63-story Address Hotel in the downtown area of the Gulf metropolis, covering nearly the entire structure and sending hundreds of people fleeing for safety.
"The left side of the hotel is completely gone," Al Jazeera's Diana al-Rifai reported from the scene. "There was a minor stampede - panic set in and people ran away."

The government of Dubai's media office said on Twitter that 14 people had been injured, including a person who suffered a heart attack while trying to run away. By 21.00 GMT, authorities said the fire had largely been brought under control. The blaze started on the 20th floor of the building and only affected the outside of the structure, Dubai's media office said.
Rifai said big pieces of the building fell from the sky and thick black smoke blanketed the entire city. Helicopters hovered around the blaze, she said. It was not immediately clear what caused the blaze, which ran up dozens of stories of the building near the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest skyscraper at 828 metres. Despite the massive fire, the New Year's Eve fireworks show nearby at the Burj went ahead as planned.

Source: Aljazeera