By LILYA ERZHANOVA
The Associated Press
ASTANA, Kazakhstan — A fire broke out Tuesday on the top floors of a 32-story government skyscraper nicknamed “The Lighter,” sending flames and smoke billowing high above the capital of Astana.
The building was evacuated, and only one woman suffered from smoke inhalation and two firefighters were slightly injured by falling glass, said city ambulance service chief Gulnara Sydykova.
The fire, which broke out about 4 p.m., was extinguished in about two hours, according to the building’s manager Svyatoslav Nogai.
The fire appeared to have started on a 27th-floor balcony, although its cause had not been determined, the Kazakhstan Today news agency quoted Emergencies Minister Shalbay Kulmakhan as saying.
The building houses the ministries of transport, information and industry and other government agencies.
Bolatbek Bilalov, a building security official, said in televised remarks that internal phone lines were used to alert and evacuate the roughly 2,000 people working in the building.
Berik Bekzhanov, an Information Ministry official who was working on the 29th floor when the fire broke out, said alarms failed to go off. He said he and his colleagues began to leave the building by stairs after smelling smoke and told people on lower floors along the way also to evacuate.
Authorities also evacuated the area around the 426-foot building, a modern, glass-sheathed structure known as “The Lighter” because of its shape.