AJMAN // At first, Wallada Shabouk did not know if the alert in her building was a false alarm. The 30-year-old Syrian would spend the rest of Monday night on the street with her neighbours, watching as their home burnt.
It was not unusual for the alarms to go off in Tower Eight of the Ajman One development, said Ms Shabouk, who put the noise down to children playing.
“Every day kids play with it [the alarm] and we hear it twice a day. When people heard its sound they did not believe there was a fire. I noticed the sound stayed for a long time, so I went and asked people if this time it was real and no one knew.”
But Ms Shabouk realised the situation was grave when she went to a neighbour’s flat and saw flames at the kitchen window.
“The rescue team asked me to leave immediately. I told them I couldn’t run because I was pregnant,” said Ms Shabouk, who lived on the eighth floor.
“We spent the night on the street looking at our home while it was burning.”
Abdulqader Sheikh was home with his wife and young children when the fire in Tower Eight spread to his building.
The Pakistani expatriate hurried his heavily pregnant wife and their two children, aged two and five, out of their fifth-floor flat in Tower Six, down the stairs and out into the street as the flames took hold.
He did not know when his family would be able to return home to collect what was left of their possessions.
“It looks like my apartment on the fifth floor has been completely burnt,” said the accountant. “It will take a few days before we know the extent of the damage. I will move to Sharjah to live with my brother for the time being.”
Hundreds of people were evacuated from the 12 tower development as a precaution, with 300 residents from towers eight and six housed in hotels in Ajman and Sharjah by the Red Crescent.
Eighty-five tenants and families were given temporary accommodation at the Ramada Hotel and Executive Suites in Ajman.
“We are fully booked now. We will give out more rooms as soon as they are vacant,” said Musa Nasraween, reception manager.
Azra Imran, a Pakistani mother of three, was having dinner in their 13th floor flat in Tower Six when they saw a fire on a balcony in the building opposite.
“There were just three floors in Tower Eight on fire. I got afraid and ran with the children with no shoes. I cried too much because I lost everything, and police told me the 13th floor was completely gutted,” the 25-year-old said.
Sherif Abdulmonem, an Egyptian operations manager, was sleeping when the fire started.
“A friend called and woke me up and said ‘Tower Eight next to your building is on fire, so you should leave.’ At that time, nothing happened in Tower Six, but I saw from my window how the flames flew with the wind.”
The 43-year-old collected important documents and left. He spent the night on the street.
“I did not sleep. The Red Crescent came in the early morning, collected tenants and took them to hotels, but I missed that,” he said.
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