A fire has swept through several floors of an apartment building in New York City, leaving 12 people dead, including an infant, while leaving four others critically injured.
The cause of the blaze in the New York City borough of Bronx was not immediately clear, but it began on the first floor and spread rapidly to the third floor, officials said.
“I’m sorry to report 12 New Yorkers are dead, including one child as young as one year old,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters at the scene on Thursday.
De Blasio said that the death toll ranked as “one of the worst losses of life to a fire in many, many years” in the city.
Four people were in hospital in critical condition “fighting for their lives,” the mayor said. “We may lose others as well.”
De Blasio noted that the victims…