Survivors of a fire at a karaoke bar in Vietnam on Thursday spoke of their terror as they tried to escape an inferno that killed over 30 people and raised questions about fire safety standards in the Southeast Asian nation.

The fire in a dense residential area of ??Thuan An city, north of Ho Chi Minh City’s commercial hub, quickly spread through the three-story building, engulfing the second floor and engulfing customers and employees as thick smoke filled the stairwell.

Thirty-two people were killed and 17 injured, police said, with many suffering broken bones after the flames forced them to jump from the roof.

Due to the intensity of the flames, firefighters struggled to get into the building and had to tear down part of a wall to get inside. Eight people were found dead in the bar’s toilet.

Do Thanh Tu, who worked at An Phu karaoke parlor, told state media he was convinced he would die in the inferno.

“When the fire broke out, I tried to run to the first floor, but I saw too much fire there, so I ran to the roof for shelter,” he told news site VNexpress as he was hospitalized in Thuan An lay .

“I saw people up there, many of them were screaming. We thought we were going to die. Lots of people jumped.

“About half an hour later, rescuers came for us. There was so much smoke I couldn’t breathe.”

Sixty people were in the 30-room bar when the fire broke out Tuesday night. Many employees at this point were sleeping on the top floor waiting for their next shift and saw smoke creeping up the stairs.

Ngan, 20, told VNexpress it stung her nose and eyes, locking her and her colleagues in the room. Eventually forced onto the roof, they tried to stick their heads through metal bars and wave their hands, hoping someone would see them.

According to authorities in Binh Duong province, the original cause was an electrical short circuit.

The bar’s fire safety standards have been reviewed three times – in 2019, 2021 and this year – and have met all the requirements of the regulation, authorities added.

But it comes after several deadly fires in recent years, including two at karaoke bars in Hanoi, prompted the Vietnamese prime minister to order an investigation as well as an inspection of all high-risk venues.

Police blamed partially drunk singers for the tragedy during a press conference.

“You were drunk. When karaoke bar staff informed them of the fire… people in some karaoke rooms were not listening,” provincial police chief Trinh Ngoc Quyen said.

“There was a room where a customer pulled an employee into the room and closed the door.”

Family members of the victims – some holding flowers and pictures of their loved ones – queued outside the hospital morgue to identify their relatives.

Tran Thi Bich Van, 32, lost her husband, brother and brother-in-law in the blaze.

She told AFP her brother visited her from his home on the southern island of Phu Quoc and all three men went to the karaoke bar after dinner.

“Around 10:40 p.m. the police called me and at that moment I knew they had been in the fire,” she said.

“His body is badly disfigured,” she said tearfully about her husband. “But his face stays bright.”