
Luong Thai Linh / EPA
Smoke billows a blazing building in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Thursday.
Updated at 11:20 a.m. ET: At least 30 workers were rescued when an office block being built by Vietnam's state power company caught fire Thursday, engulfing part of downtown Hanoi in black smoke.
Several workers waved their shirts from an upper-floor balcony to call for help after smoke began to engulf the building, The Associated Press reported. Others used cellphones and flashlights to summon help. At 10:15 p.m. local time (10:15 a.m. ET), it was not clear whether any people remained trapped in the complex, which was described by local media as the city's "twin towers."
However, Tuoi Tre News reported that "all people trapped in the towers had been rescued."
The official Vietnam News Agency said 30 workers were rescued, including 16 who were hospitalized for smoke inhalation.
Witnesses said they saw flames in the basement of the 33-story building. The Thanh Nien newspaper quoted Nguyen Huy Hoc, a worker who escaped the blaze, as saying sparks from welding in the basement ignited nearby material in the air-conditioning system.
Published at 9:10 a.m. ET: About 20 people were believed to be trapped Thursday after a blaze broke out at a skyscraper in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, according to reports.
Tuoi Tre News reported that clouds of smoke billowed from the under-construction EVN Center for Telecommunications Information Management after the fire started around 4:30 p.m. local time (4:30 a.m. ET). Citing a source, it said at least two people had been rescued and taken to hospital from the "twin towers" complex.
Tuoi Tre quoted an official as saying that some workers on the site "rushed to upper floors" when the fire erupted.
According to BBC Vietnam, about 20 people were believed to be trapped inside.
The BBC reported that one of the buildings is 33 stories, while the other has 29 floors.
It added that either a gas explosion or faulty wiring was believed to have sparked the blaze.
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The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.


They must build them better in Vietnam. Ours just fell down when they caught FIRE , the only skyscrapers in the world that fell because of FIRE. Go figure? Must be our cheap steel? Or our thermite?
Hint: You should make sure that your tin hat is grounded, it will work better at keeping the CIA signals out of your brain. Though I have to say we all love conspiracy theories, even well debunked ones.
dumb ass, our fell because of EXTREME heat from buring jet fuel that went down elevator shafts and stairways. a lot differnt scenario that burning paper.
Not to mention we didn't land on the moon, the Holocaust was faked, aliens at Area 51, and of course you can't forget the grassy knoll....
Debunked....really. I must've missed the part it addressed the pancaking of both buildings or how Bldg 7 fell without getting hit by a thing and was noted as being 'pulled'.
I'll leave alone that it was never substantiated how individuals could fly the plane to start with. Learning to fly on small 4 seater planes and flying a jumbo jet are 2 entirely different things....performing the necessary functions on an instrument panel you've NEVER seen or practiced on is impossible. Nor how they even found Manhattan at that altitude considering they NEVER flew that high. Its the equivalent of getting your first drivers license and immediately race a Formula 1 car....and win the race.
Yeah ,19 arabs knocked down our skyscrapers with two planes and building 7 fell becasue it wanted to.
No fires have ever brought down a skyscraper KOOL-AID drinkers, until ours fell. So you believe what you have been led to believe , I just think your tinfoil hats are bought and paid for by the US government, maybe saddams WMD brought them down? That was the truth too until it was proven a lie.
I love nazi's they tell the truth too.
"TRUTH is the enemy of the STATE"
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany
"Of course the people don't want war.
But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy.
All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
Herman Goering
Nuremberg Trials
Good to see the play book has not changed.
Put in all that Jet Fuel like on 9/11, they would fall a lot quicker than those in NYC. Your not very bright thinking "flames" in the basement equals houndreds of gallons of Jet Fuel
I'm with you Homie! Do you clowns really believe our government is meddling in the affairs of hell every single day? BTW, the government knew the attack on Pearl Harbor was coming and even confirmed it with new technology - radar - when they saw the mass of planes coming. They allowed it to happen so we could enter WWII. Speculation about our meddling in the affairs or Europe and deliberate use of civilian ships to carry arms got us into WWI - plus speculation that we deliberately ran it through known hostile waters to precipitate its sinking by German U-boats.
If you A.C.s (that's a$$ clowns) think the government has your best interests in mind and are operating in legitimacy, I have some swamp land to sell you...
I would think that being hit by a 200,000 pound aircraft full of fuel might have something to do with it. Maybe it's just me. I'm sure the Pentagon still has their secret ray guns that made all those people have the same hallucination that they saw planes hit the towers.
@Kurts:
A big jet carries not just hundreds of gallons, but over a hundred tons of fuel.
9/11 truthers = stupid people, anarchists, gullible, paranoid, ......
It confounds me to no end that there are more than 10 people who think 9/11 was an inside job. Sometimes it is what it is. Even JFK's assassination has been provn to be the work of a single gunman (Lee Harvey Oswald), who shot the president and governor from the School Book Depository. Modern forensic analysis has provn all 3 shots originated from the same point, and the murder weapon belonged to him. Contrary to the ass wipe Oliver Stone who made a fraudulent movie on this, nothing has surfaced to support a conspiracy of any kind. Now did the Russians or Cubans egg LHO on perhaps, that's another issue.
Honestly, I am not a demolition expert, but our Twin Towers sure looked like controlled demolition to me...
demolition expert, but our Twin Towers sure looked like controlled demolition to me. Hence why your not a demolition expert. Might want to watch how they make buildings come down with demolitions and then you will see that it would have taken weeks to get the buildings ready, plus since tons of people worked in the offices all those weeks before the planes hit. Nothing was reported on strange workers in the building.
Not in the 1%,
also take into account that Building 7 could have been knocked down by shrapnel and debris from the towers as they fell. We are talking tens of tons, if not several hundred tons of material falling downward at a high rate of speed. The proverbial s*** is going to fly with forces like that at play.
Someone call Jane Fonda!
No - Glenn Beck has all the answers, eh?
Rescue shouldn't be a big problem, should it? I mean, we left dozens of perfectly nice helicopters there. . .
Seriously, though. I hope they get the workers out. And, it's interesting to see a modern skyscraper being built in Hanoi.
Hopefully these workers can be rescued safely.
Also the headline says 'twin' towers, but one is 33 floors and the other 29 floors. Maybe they should call them the Vietnam ‘Fraternal Twin’ Towers.
LOL!
skal1976: Rosie (O'Donnell) called and wants to do lunch.
who cares.by the way whos that stupid looking guy running around in that dumb looking cap.they were morons back in the 60s and there still morons now.
More like twin medium rise buildings.