01 August 2023 , 13:24
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The terrifying moment a toddler is launched out of a fifth-floor window to be saved from a burning residential tower has been caught on camera.
The video capturing the incredible rescue in Almaty, Kazakhstan, showed the young child being dangled by a woman out the window as black plumes of smoke billow out of their flat. A sea of people below is seen running across the lawn with a mattress in hand, ready to catch the child as he is eventually launched by the woman. Luckily, the child appears to land on the mattress and the adult then leans out the window to jump herself, again landing on the mattress.
The little child seen dangling out the burning window (youtube.com)
People below stand ready to catch the child with a mattress (youtube.com)According to rus.azattyq.org, the Almaty Health Department said that as of 6.30pm local time (1.30pm UK time) 31 people had been taken to hospitals in he city, 16 of them children. But no deaths have been reported. "On August 1, at 17:10, the forces of the Department of Emergency were sent to the Alatau district. Upon arrival, six minutes later, an apartment on the fifth floor of a 16-storey residential building was found to be burning with an open flame", the emergency services statement read according to local media. It said that electric cables caught fire in the elevator shaft at the level of the fifth and sixth floors. An update statement said, around an hour and a half later the fire was extinguished and that more than 250 people were evacuated.
In May last year, a similar incident in Kazakhstan happened when a man saved a three-year-old girl dangling from a window of an eight-floor house. Astonishing footage of the nailbiting rescue shows the youngster was hanging on for dear life after she apparently slipped through the window. But as she tries to cling on, her rescuer emerges from a window beneath her in what looks like a mission impossible in the Kazakhstan capital Nur-Sultan.
As the toddler balances precariously on the window frame the rescuer reaches upwards towards the girl, hanging on to one of her legs, seemingly urging her to let go. When she does, she drops down into his free arm and he slips her through the window he had been balancing on before climbing back to safety himself. Kazakh's Ministry of Emergency Situations named the hero as Shontakbaev Sabit and awarded him a medal for his heroism.
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In a statement, the ministry said: "On 11th May at 10.21 am, a message was received that a child was hanging from a window. By the time the emergency services arrived, it was established that a man had saved the child dangling from the window on the eighth floor. Dear parents, this was a happy occasion when the child was rescued safely, but there are many other incidents with a tragic outcome."