LEAP OF FAITH
Heart-stopping moment parents hurl their kids from 100ft window to escape burning building as heroes catch them below
THIS is the heart-stopping moment panicked parents hurled their children from the windows of a burning apartment block.
Quick-thinking locals stood 100ft below on the ground to catch the terrified youngster using sheets in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
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A raging inferno swept through the 16-storey building after flames engulfed an elevator shaft between the fifth and sixth floors.
As smoke and fire spread more than 300 people were evacuated from the block.
Nail-biting footage shows an adult holding a tot out of a window and people below frantically run closer to the building gripping a sheet.
The toddler is then dropped, plummeting down before being caught in the white cover.
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Residents then used a mattress to break the fall of an adult leaping from a high up window.
Smoke can be seen billowing out of the block in thick plumes and dozens of people watched on in horror.
It's understood the emergency stairs could not be used as residents had blocked them.
At least 31 people were rushed to hospital - including 16 kids.
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It's understood there were no fatalities.
After arriving at the scene, firefighters brought tall rescue ladders to reach the upper floors of the building, lowering 40 people.
The blaze was finally extinguished with the help of 50 firefighters and three ladders.
It comes after footage showed the incredible moment a mum saved her four children from certain death by throwing them from the third floor of a burning building.
Locals stretched out a blanket as a makeshift safety net to catch the kids as they plummeted from a window of a five-storey apartment block in Istanbul, Turkey.
In a startling video filmed from the street below, the mother is seen dropping each child from the window as a cloud of black smoke pours through the opening.
Bystanders are heard screaming in terror with some pleading with her not to drop the youngsters from the flat, which was above a parade of shops.
One clearly distressed woman is heard crying as the terrifying drama unfolded in the Esenler district, on the city's bustling European side.
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Each child was carried to an ambulance after they landed on the blanket below.
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