Mother rescues children from fire by dropping them through window

A woman has rescued her four children from a burning building by dropping them through a window.

The family was in a five-storey building in Istanbul’s Esenler district when the fire took hold on Wednesday.

As black smoke billowed from the window of their third-floor apartment, bystanders were heard screaming, some of them shouting at her not to drop the children.

The Daily Sabah reported that volunteers stretched out a blanket as a makeshift net to catch the children. One by one, they were dropped out of the window.

Each child was carried to an ambulance after landing on the blanket.

A witness told the newspaper: “First, black smoke started to come out. Then, the children started shouting from the windows and we opened the blankets.”