Firefighters, rescuers and others are seen at the scene of a fire in Osaka's Kita Ward shortly after noon on Dec. 17, 2021 in this photograph taken from a Mainichi Shimbun helicopter. (Mainichi/Takao Kitamura)

       OSAKA -- People near the scene of a fire that raged through a multi-tenant building in Osaka's Kita Ward on the morning of Dec. 17, claiming 24 lives, described the turmoil in the wake of the blaze, which firefighters battled to mostly extinguish about 30 minutes after it started.

       The fire broke out in the Kitashinchi area, a prominent entertainment district in western Japan near JR Osaka Station, and injured people were carried out of the building one after another. At the medical facility in the building, Nishi-Umeda Kokoro to Karada no Clinic, people expressed their concerns for those whose whereabouts were unknown, saying they hoped they were all right.

       At around 10:20 a.m. a 41-year-old man working at a nearby Italian restaurant heard the voice of a colleague shouting, "There's a fire. This looks dangerous!" and came outside. Black smoke was rising from the multi-tenant building, and a burnt smell filled the air. Red flames were licking out from a psychosomatic clinic on the fourth floor of the building, and the upper parts of the windows were charred black.

       The man said a woman who was trapped in the building was leaning out of a window, waiting to be rescued. From below, passersby shouted words of support, saying, "Hang in there," telling her that help would be there soon. The woman was later rescued and carried away, but her body appeared limp, the man said.

       One 58-year-old man working near the scene of the fire said he heard what sounded like an explosion around the time the fire broke out. "Flames were coming out of the window on the fourth floor and the fire spread quickly," he said.

       With many people injured in the blaze, the Osaka Prefectural Government dispatched a disaster medical assistance team. As wounded people were carried out of the building, paramedics were seen performing heart massage, and lifeless-looking people were carted away on stretchers, wrapped in sheets and blankets.

       The 58-year-old manager of a convenience store about 50 meters away from the scene of the fire appeared uneasy amid the turmoil.

       "I could hear sirens, and saw black smoke rising up. Even inside the store a bad smell wafted in. There were people being carried away on stretchers," he said.

       A woman in her 40s who works near the multi-tenant building said, "At the building I work at too, the power went out for about an hour. Fire trucks and ambulances quickly turned up, and there were crowds of people there. I felt scared."

       (Japanese original by Yuta Kumamoto, Yukina Furukawa and Ryoko Kijima, Osaka City News Department, and Nanami Hidaka, Osaka Regional News Department)

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