One hour, then I'm dead-Dubai fire survivor says

Grasping the edge of a balcony 48 stories
from the ground, just metres away from a raging
fire, the photographer thought he may not live to
see 2016.
"One hour, then that's it, I'm dead," he thought as he
stood on the tiny sill of a balcony in Dubai's luxury
The Address Downtown hotel, attached by a rope to
a massive window-cleaning platform.
Not long before, he had entered the balcony with a
friend to take photographs of the nearby New Year's
Eve fireworks display for his newspaper.
But the night suddenly changed when a huge fire
erupted in the hotel below them, engulfing several
floors of the huge building in the heart of the
skyscraper city.
"There's a fire," his friend shouted, rushing towards
the nearest exit, before the photographer looked out
and saw "smoke coming towards the balcony".
Afraid that he would die from suffocation, and
unable to see how he could escape, the
photographer decided there was only one thing for
it: to tie a rope from himself to a window-cleaning
platform and hang off the balcony.
He rolled out some 30m of a heavy-duty cable from
a nearby machine used by workers to clean the
tower's windows, attached it to his belt and
photographing equipment and stepped off the edge.
The rope "was my saviour", he told AFP, asking not
to be named and explaining that the fire was less
than 10m away from him at that point.
'Afraid I might collapse'
He feared he would die from suffocation, he said. "I
wasn't sure what was happening downstairs. I was
afraid I might collapse from the smoke."
Holding on for dear life outside the building, he
began calling and texting his colleagues asking
them to get in touch with the civil defence for help.
Civil defence representatives kept him calm as he
waited to be rescued. "I was telling them I hoped to
survive and see my wife," he said.
More than half an hour later, he heard rescue
workers approaching his floor.
"When I saw lights and heard the sounds of
footsteps at the floor I was in, I started tapping on
the aluminium to get their attention," he said.
"I think I was the only person left stuck that long,"
he said, describing how he was led out through the
smoke-filled corridors of the five-star hotel.
Dubai's police chief said that all the residents had
been evacuated due to the blaze, the cause of
which was unknown.
Not far away, Dubai's fireworks display erupted as
usual to welcome in the new year, starting from the
Burj Khalifa - the world's tallest building - before
spreading across the skies above the city.
For the photographer, the start of 2016 is
something he will never forget. "I'm excited
because it's New Year, and [filled with] an
adrenaline rush," he told AFP, his voice still shaky.