HCMC apartment building manager jailed for deadly fire

The HCMC People’s Court decided that Nguyen Quoc Tuan, as head of the management board of the building, held the main responsibility for the deadly fire.

The court also sentenced Nguyen Van Tung, former director of Hung Thanh Company that was the building’s investor, to 6.5 years in jail.

Both were charged with violations of firefighting and prevention regulations.

According to the judge panel, Tung and Tuan were aware that the fire alert system at the building had broken but did nothing to fix it.

The building was not equipped with enough tools to deal with fire also because Tung had lent them to another building, which needed equipment to show an inspection team.

The Carina fire broke out at 1:15 a.m. on March 23, 2018, starting from a fault in a motorbike in the basement parking lot.

The fire quickly spread to other motorbikes and cars, but the alarm sirens and lights did not turn on.

Smoke and heat rose to upper floors and killed 13 people. Another 72 people were injured.

The building’s investor has compensated the affected people with more than VND108 billion (US$4.4 million).