On Oct. 2, a fire broke out on the ground floor of a two-story villa in Abu Dhabi’s Bani Yas district, leaving all 12 members of the Emirati family trapped during Fajr prayers.

Only four members of the family managed to escape the blaze, including Ali Badawi Al Kotheri — the head of the household. The four are currently hospitalized and remain in critical condition, Khaleej Times reports.

Among the dead were three women aged 21, 37 and 38, as well as three boys and two girls between the ages of one and eight. According to Gulf News, in a short audio clip that trended on social media following Tuesday’s incident, Al Kotheri can be heard recounting the frightful outcome of the struggle.

“Eight people died in our home this morning, including my two daughters,” Gulf News reports.

Within hours of extinguishing the blaze, the Abu Dhabi Police also took to social media to confirm the nature of the incident and offer their condolences to the mourning family.

“We express deep regret for the unfortunate and painful incident, and express our deepest condolences and sincere sympathy to their families,” the Abu Dhabi Police wrote in an Instagram post.

More than 1,000 people gathered at Baniyas Cemetery Mosque on Oct. 2 to mourn the dead children and family members at funeral prayers, The National reports. Grieving neighbors, relatives and community members all came together to lift the bodies, one by one, into the mosque and then later to the cemetery, where the deceased family members were buried alongside one another.

This fire safety tragedy is not an isolated incident. Just last January, a house fire in Fujairah left seven siblings dead and the sole-surviving mother childless after faulty living room lights sparked flames.

However, since the Fujairah tragedy at the beginning of 2018, the UAE has taken proactive steps toward securing residents’ homes against house fires through the provision of smoke detectors, indoor sirens and a national fire safety plan. In light of the Bani Yas fire, the Abu Dhabi Police and UAE Civil Defense called upon residents in the community to remember the importance of these national efforts and their place in every household.

"We urge everyone to ensure they have smoke alarms in their homes. The value of the smoke alarm is not equal to the value, the health and the life of a child," the Abu Dhabi Police told Khaleej Times.

Last week, Mastercard released their annual Global Destination Cities Index, which ranks over 160 different cities on their attractiveness to overnight tourists and visitors.

This year, Bangkok claimed the top spot with 20.05 million overnight visitors, followed by London and Paris to complete the top three. Dubai took fourth place with 15.79 million overnight visitors. However, it looks as though the city is aiming for the number one spot, as the Crown Prince of Dubai, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, has introduced a new national strategy for this purpose.

On Oct. 3, Sheikh Hamdan took to Twitter to announce his plans and call for the expansion of Dubai’s tourism industry.

“Dubai will be the most-visited city in the world by adopting a set of ambitions, development plans and valuable projects that will form a strong foundation to establish Dubai’s leadership,” Sheikh Hamdan professed in an article in The National.

According to the latest plan, Dubai will aim to attract between 23 and 25 million annual overnight visitors by 2025 — just seven years away. That being said, Dubai’s latest figures on tourism have highlighted flat growth in visitors for the first half of 2018, compared to a 6.2 percent increase in tourists during the same period just last year, The National reports.

With such ambitious goals, Dubai will need to increase its annual tourism by 50 percent in order to reach their goal of 25 million overnight visitors by 2025.

The first Hyperloop passenger pods have been revealed at an event in Jerez, Spain, only five years after the initial conception of the mass supersonic travel project.

In April, a historic deal was signed between Hyperloop Transport Technologies (HTT) and UAE’s Aldar Properties to construct a Hyperloop transport center and an XO Square Innovation Center for further research and development on the unparalleled technology.

Most importantly, the deal outlined the first phase of construction, a 10-kilometer Hyperloop transport system between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, which will use electromagnetic levitation engineering to carry the pods at the speed of sound, Mach-1 — 1,230kph.

The newly unveiled QuinteroOne pod measures in at 32 meters in length and just over five tons in friction and air resistant materials.

Development is still underway, however elite staff-members of the HTT team have reassured the public that the company will reach its 2019 commercial deadline.

“In 2019, this capsule will be fully optimized and ready for passengers,” announced Bibop Gresta, chairman and co-founder of HTT, in an article in The National.