July 1 (UPI) -- Five people died Wednesday in a fire at a 10-story apartment building in Antwerp, Belgium, local police announced.
The fire broke out before 10 a.m. on the eighth floor of the building in the Linkeroever district of the city, the BBC reported.
The blaze also injured multiple people in the building, which housed more than 200 people in 80 apartments, Sky News reported. Authorities evacuated the occupants of the building and transported them to a local shelter.
One resident on the 10th floor told Belgian outlet VRTNWS that the electricity went out and then a fire alarm went off 3 minutes later.
"By then, there was already smoke in the hallways," Geert Dewulf said. "We tried to get down on our own, but we couldn't manage it anymore.
