Hotel fire in India kills 15, some jumped to escape

A fire tore through a hotel in the city of Kolkata in eastern India, killing at least 14 people – including two children – police said on Wednesday.

The fire was reported at around 8.15pm on Tuesday and was first detected in a room close to the kitchen on the first floor of the Rituraj Hotel, police sources said.

Flames and smoke soon engulfed the entire building in the Burrabazar district of the city, the sources said, adding that almost all of the 45 rooms in the hotel were occupied and that about 50 people were in the building at the time.

Most dead bodies were found in the staircase of the hotel and asphyxiation was suspected to be the main cause of death, said Sujit Bose, the fire and emergency services minister of West Bengal state, of which Kolkata is the capital. Eight bodies had been identified so far, Bose said.

Photos and videos carried in Indian media showed people trying to escape through the windows and off the narrow ledges of the building.

Kolkata Police Commissioner Manoj Kumar Verma said that five people were rescued from their rooms and around 20 from the roof, while some were also rescued from balconies. The cause of the fire was not immediately clear.

  

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