Oakland warehouse fire toll 36
Print Edition
THE death toll in the Oakland warehouse fire in California, United States, has grown to 36 and authorities say they expect the number to rise when they resume work later yesterday following a temporary work stoppage. A wall is leaning inward, posing a safety hazard to those who have been searching the building which erupted in fire on Friday night.
Eleven of the victims have been positively identified, but the names have yet to be publicly released.
Authorities also believe they’ve located the section of the building where the fire started, but the cause remains unknown.
The fire erupted during a dance party on Friday night.
Survivors and teary-eyed friends of those who perished viewed the charred building from a distance, have placed flowers on several small memorials and embraced each other to mourn their losses.
Bouquets of sunflowers, single white roses, lilies and carnations were stuck in chain-link fences, votive candles burned on sidewalks and post-it notes paid tribute to the missing and the dead in the most lethal building fire in the US in more than a decade.
Kai Thomas and a group of red-eyed classmates from an arts high school in San Francisco pressed against police tape on Sunday near the street corner where the “Ghost Ship,” a warehouse converted to artist studios and illegal living spaces, rapidly went up in flames late on Friday, taking the life of a friend.
Three of the boys had been in the cramped and dark building, Thomas said, but one got separated from them 30 seconds before someone yelled, “Fire.”
The boys waited for their 17-year-old friend for more than three hours, but he never emerged.
They wouldn’t give his name, but the victims included a 17-year-old, as well as people from Europe and Asia and some over 30, Alameda County Sheriff’s Sergeant Ray Kelly said. Officials had identified eight of the dead — at least seven of them using fingerprints, but told family members of the missing that they may need to use DNA for more difficult identifications.
Firefighters had searched less than half the building and expected more casualties as they worked around the clock to remove debris bucket by bucket.
Authorities would not answer questions about the couple that operated the Satya Yuga collective, who were identified as Derick Ion Almena and Micah Allison and were believed to have been out of the building at the time of the blaze.
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