At least 12 dead from apartment fire in New York City

Reuters

• An apartment fire in the Bronx borough of New York City reportedly killed at least 12 people.
• More casualties are expected.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A fire in an apartment in the Bronx borough of New York City on Thursday has killed at least 12 people, the mayor's press secretary said in a Twitter post.

After a local television reporter cited a spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio as saying that at least six people were dead in the fire, the spokesman responded on Twitter. "Will be more. Horrible," the spokesman, Eric Phillips, said, adding that the fire commissioner and mayor were en route to the scene.

After de Blasio later updated the death toll, Phillips called it the "worst fire in several decades."

Few official details of the blaze were immediately available. WABC-TV, the New York affiliate of the ABC television network, said the fire erupted shortly before 7 p.m. on the third floor of a five-story building.

The New York City Fire Department said on its Twitter account that 15 serious injuries to civilians were reported in the blaze and that more than 160 firefighters were on the scene.

City police officer Tiffany Phillips added by telephone that there were an unknown number of fatalities. She said the blaze erupted in a "multiple-dwelling building."

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta in New York; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Sandra Maler and Leslie Adler)