At least one person is dead and three missing after a 22-storey building collapsed in Brazil's largest city.
More than 150 firefighters were battling a major blaze which broke out at a high-rise building overnight in Brazil's largest city, São Paulo. Photo: AFP
More than 150 firefighters were battling the blaze in São Paulo, which was thought to have been caused by a gas explosion. The fire started at 1.20am local time, and the high-rise collapsed just 90 minutes later.
Firefighters evacuated the building but as they were taking out the last of the residents the building collapsed, killing one man. Live television showed a firefighter on an adjacent rooftop talking to the man clinging to a rescue rope and trying to escape from the upper part of the burning building when it collapsed.
Firefighter Max Mena said the man's death was "a matter of seconds, but we couldn't save him".
One firefighter was also injured, newspaper Estadão reported.
According to authorities, 400 people were registered as living in the building, which belonged to the government. Fire authorities said they feared more people were trapped inside.
Estadão reported makeshift living compartments in the building had also been constructed from wood, aiding the spread of the blaze through the floors.
About 50 families had moved into the building in the Largo do Paissandu area of the city after the federal police force, which had been using it, vacated it some years ago.
Witnesses said flames spread quickly from one of the lower floors and set an adjacent building on fire.
'Like a tsunami'
"It felt like a tsunami when the building came down," a 58-year-old woman who lived on the fourth floor told Folha newspaper. "I could not take anything with me."
Deise Silva, 31, told Folha she was asleep inside one of the rooms with her five children when she was woken by screaming.
"When people told me there was a fire, I woke up the children and ran," she said.
A nearby hotel was also evacuated. The hotel receptionist told Folha he was alerted to the blaze by shouting.
"At first I thought it was a fight but then I heard people shouting 'get out, get out!'" he said.
'Accident waiting to happen'
São Paulo Governor Márcio França said the building was an accident waiting to happen but that its residents had resisted leaving.
"That type of home is uninhabitable, staying there is looking for trouble," he said at the site of the blaze.
The city and state governments have been working for years to forcibly remove squatters from buildings in central Sao Paulo, with plans for revitalizing the area.
Mr França said about 150 buildings in the region were occupied by organised groups of squatters, who have pressured the government for years to provide housing for the city's homeless.
The governor said it was legally difficult to force people to evacuate the old and decaying buildings.
"There is not even a minimal condition for people to live in there," he said. "People live there in desperation. This was a tragedy foretold."
São Paulo fire brigade captain Marcos Palumbo said modifications made by the residents had allowed the fire to spread more quickly.
"The lifts had been taken out and those empty air shafts formed a chimney. There was also a lot of combustible material, such as wood and paper which helped fuel the fire," he said.
Officials said the second building was not yet at risk of collapse. Firefighters cordoned off a large area around the blaze.
Last year, dozens of homes were destroyed by a fire in a favela in the city.
- BBC / Reuters