Nine Bangladeshis died in a devastating fire at a hotel on Mirza Ghalib Street, near New Market, in Kolkata, in India’s West Bengal state. Among the dead were six men, two women, and a child. NDTV reported the news.
The fire broke out on the hotel’s fourth floor around 3:00 a.m. Tuesday night into Wednesday. Kolkata police and fire services reached the scene after being alerted. It took roughly two hours to bring the fire under control. By then, however, part of the hotel had burned, and the fire had claimed lives.
Roughly 60 people have been rescued so far in connection with the incident. Many were rendered unconscious by smoke from the fire and taken to Calcutta Medical College and Hospital. Several are said to be in critical condition.
Police and fire services initially believe the fire may have started from an air conditioning unit at the hotel. An investigation is under way to determine the actual cause.
Anandabazar Patrika reported that the fire broke out Tuesday night while everyone at the hotel was asleep. Many became trapped inside. The building’s entrance and only exit were one and the same, and that passage was narrow. Residents alleged the hotel had no emergency exit. Some fled into bathrooms and tried to escape by breaking windows there. Fire service personnel arrived and rescued the building’s residents.
Two of the hotel’s guests, friends who had arrived from Rampurhat Tuesday night, described the scene. One of them, Ejaz Ahmed, said they had been staying at a separate guest house on the building’s fourth floor. They had eaten and gone to sleep around 12:30 a.m. They woke around 2:15 a.m. to the sound of two women screaming. As soon as they opened their door, smoke poured into the room. “The corridor leading out of the room was very narrow,” he said. “The room filled with smoke.”
A family living on the very top floor of the New Market building was also rescued. A woman from that family said the fire had already been extinguished by the time they were brought down. She alleged that hotel management had repeatedly been asked to install fire safety equipment, but no one followed the rules. Complaints to the authorities, she said, had also gone nowhere.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report