38 people injured in New York fire caused by faulty battery, say officials

More than three dozen people have suffered injuries after a faulty battery caused a fire at a high-rise apartment building situated in Manhattan, according to New York fire officials. Out of the 38 injured, two persons were reportedly in critical condition.

The 37-story building where the fire broke out on Saturday morning is located near the East River on East 52nd Street. Firefighters can be seen using ropes to scale the building, with smoke gushing out of a window in the video posted online. People can be seen hanging out of apartment windows.

According to fire officials, some people who resided on the floor above where the blaze broke out escaped to the roof. Laura Kavanagh, the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) commissioner, said that a lithium battery connected to an unidentified micro-mobility device caused the fire in a 20th-floor apartment.


Officials are yet to give an exact figure of the number of families displaced by the incident.



Several people in New York have previously died in fires linked to micro-mobility devices.

In September, an 8-year-old girl was killed when a fire broke out due to an electric scooter battery. A fire blamed on a scooter battery also killed a 5-year-old girl and a woman in Harlem in August.

A 9-year-old boy in Queens was also killed in a fire linked to an e-scooter in September 2021.

FAQs:

1. Can lithium-ion batteries catch fire?
   They do catch fire, being sensitive to high temperatures.
2. How likely is a lithium-ion battery to explode?
   1 in a million incidents is recorded.