Smoke still wafting from Dubai's luxury Address hotel after New Year's blaze

 

CNN)Clouds of smoke continued to waft Friday from a 63-floor luxury hotel in Dubai that was engulfed in flames on New Year's Eve.

Firefighters had battled the blaze raging at the swanky Address Downtown Dubai hotel late Thursday as a spectacular New Year's fireworks display lit up the night sky nearby.

The fire started around 9:30 p.m. (12:30 p.m. ET) Thursday and burned well into early Friday. Witnesses said they heard explosions as the blaze ate away at one side of the towering structure in the heart of downtown Dubai.

Bruce Szczepanski, who watched from the balcony of a nearby hotel, said he could still hear parts of the building crashing to the ground more than nine hours after the blaze began.

"There are huge flames, and you can hear the structure falling and the thuds," he said.