Major fire forces Soho restaurants to evacuate

Restaurants in Dean Street in London’s Soho have been evacuated after a major fire broke out at a nearby office block.

Around 60 firefighters and 12 fire engines are attending the fire, which broke out in a building on Dean Street at around 2pm.

Part of the basement of the four-storey building is alight but the cause of the fire is not yet known.

"Seventy-five percent of the building has been destroyed," a spokesman for the London Fire Brigade said. "It's still an active fire."

Nearby restaurants have been evacuated, with one Twitter post saying: “Big fire in Dean Street, we got evacuated from Groucho [Club].”

Nino Ripani, manager of nearby restaurant Signor Zilli's, said: "It's really shocking, it's something that you don't see every day. It's really getting to serious stuff now - we can see the black bits coming out."

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By Kerstin Kühn

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