New York: The sadness taken throughout the bronx community Monday, the day after the fire and smoke choked swallowed a high-rise apartment building and claimed life of 17 people, eight of them children.
When survivors remember panic chaos from their escape, family and friends of those who perished in overcoming surprises, distrust and pain.
“Some people don’t even know that the people they love have gone,” said Fathia Touray, talking to the Associated Press from his home in the United Arab Emirates.
His mother and siblings lived on the third floor of the building, where the fire began.
A sister rushes to the hospital, but now is stable.
The whole family nearby fled.
Mayor Eric Adams said Monday morning that some people were still in critical condition after the room heating which did not function trigger the deadliest fire in three decades.
Renee Howard, 68, became emotional when he talked about missing life.
“I have never experienced such destruction.
My neighbor died, the children died – I did not understand, I did not understand,” he said when he was free.
“I don’t remember all their names now,” he said, before raving some, including one boy he described had “beautiful angel eyes.” All of life, he said, “said in a second.” He joined another residents, survived family and foreigners in Monday prayers to comfort the grieving.
At the Ur-rahmah mosque, a mosque is only a few blocks from the apartment building, more than two dozen people come together in solidarity.
Many of them pray in the mosque live in the building.
Around a dozen women cry in the mosque, mourn from losing three small children in the fire.
Church members are not sure about whether the parents of children survive, and many family members are afraid of the worst.
“For God we belong to our Lord again,” said Imam Mosque, Moses Kabba, who urged the church to be patient while waiting for news about loved ones.
Many who live in the apartment complex have formed a close knitting community, and immediately spread about who might die in the middle of the smoke and fire.
“I’m very sorry for the people who lost their children and their mother because we are all one.
And for this to happen, it’s terrible,” said Tysena Jacobs, a resident of the building.
Mahamadou Toure struggled to find words outside the hospital emergency room, hours after the fire took his 5-year-old daughter’s life and his brother.
“At this time my heart is very,” Toure tried to tell the daily news, before writing himself.
“It’s okay.
I gave it to God,” he continued.
The occupants of the environment, Johanna Bellevue among them, wearing clothes and other needs for survivors.
“Baby clothes, baby food, books, jackets, sneakers, whatever I can,” Bellevue said.
“I can’t do much but what I have.” In the Help Center arranged at Monroe College, Stefan Beauvogui and his wife went through the room clothing and household items.
Beauvogui has lived in the building for about seven years, he said.
He and his wife were in their apartment on the 4th floor together with his son 6 and 9 years old when his wife smelled of smoke on Sunday morning, he said.
His family waited Monday to return to their apartment to see the level of damage.
Meanwhile, the Mayor’s fund to advance New York City launched aid funds to help the population moved.
“The city is getting ready to give families affected by all the support they need,” Adams said.
Many of those who are displaced are immigrants from West African countries in Gambia.
“This is a very knitting community,” Touray said, who lived in the building itself for years and has kept in touch with family and friends in the United States despite moving to the United Arab Emirates.
His family moved to the building almost four decades ago.
Immediately, other people from Gambia, some of the same villages with him will arrive.
Over the years, they formed a community in a bronx bag.
“This is a working class, the first generation immigrant family to survive,” he said, “and just trying to develop in the US.” “We have lost many close family friends,” Touray said, who said he hoped he would return to the United States to be with family.