Karachi: At least 11 people were killed and 70 injured when fire erupted at a hotel near Shahrah-e-Faisal.
The fire erupted between one and 1:30 am midnight in the kitchen of hotel located at the ground floor and the flames engulfed six floors of the building. A number of people were staying at the hotel some with families at the time of incident. Hundreds of visitors remained stranded at the hotel till arrival of rescue teams and start of evacuation process.
The casualties occurred due to suffocation and burn injuries. Rescue efforts were hampered due to smoke and raging flames. Fire Brigade teams extinguished the fire after continuous efforts for three hours. The injured and bodies were shifted to Jinnah hospital. Women and children are among the injured who sustained burn injuries and some with breathing problems.
Four women and three doctors are among the dead. Players of national team were also staying at the same hotel at the time of incident, However all remained safe .
Head of Emergency at Jinnah Hospital Seemi Jamili told reporters that two foreigners were among the dead however their nationality was not disclosed immediately.
Mayor Karachi Waseem Akhtar visited the site of the incident and while talking to media, he said the fire has been contained but the cause of the fire could not be determined as yet. He said rescue work was hampered due to absence of an emergency exit and spread of heavy smoke.
Karachi mayor Waseem Akhtar speaking to reporters outside the hotel said the cause of the fire could not be immediately ascertained.
He said the hotel had “no fire exits or fire alarms”.
“We have received 11 dead bodies and 75 injured,” Dr Seemin Jamali, head of the emergency services at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, told AFP.
Amongst the injured were people who had fractured bones after jumping from hotel windows to escape, others had been hurt by shattered glass and many were treated for smoke inhalation, she said.
She said six men, including three doctors and the hotel’s front desk manager, and five women were among the dead. A couple from Punjab, attending a wedding in the metropolis were also among the dead. Three foreigners affected by the fire are in a stable condition, said Jamali.
Rescue officials recovered another body from the washroom of a room on the second floor on Monday evening.
Most of the country’s buildings don’t meet safety standards to avoid such mishaps.
TV footage of the incident showed guests at the hotel using bedsheets to climb down from windows.
A man standing at a balcony kept waving for help butthe hotel didn’t have any means to reach him, a survivor, Hamid Ali, told a local television channel. He said the guests were sleeping when the fire broke out.
“Trapped people showed courage and made ropes of bed sheets and came out one by one, many people have been injured,” hotel guest Saeed ur Rehman, himself wounded in the fire, told AFP.
Guests were left helpless, he said, for hours.
ire fighting equipment is present in the hotel according to law and every floor has three emergency exits, claimed the management of Regent Plaza hotel in a statement released.
“The same emergency exits were used by the hotel staff to evacuate more than 500 people, and a member of the hotel staff lost his life during while performing his duty,” added the statement.
The hotel management also asked the chief minister and the prime minister to conduct an inquiry regarding the lack of proper equipment available with the fire fighting forces.
Chief Fire Officer Tehseen Siddiqui told DawnNews that although the blaze was not very intense and was contained “quite early”, the smoke kept circulating inside because the air conditioning system stayed on.
“Despite our requests, no one from the hotel management was there who could turn off the air conditioning.”
Siddiqui said there was no exhaust inside and due to this “most people suffocated to death”.
“No fire exits had been marked inside the hotel… the smoke detectors are there but they aren’t functioning. The [hotel’s] fire alarm also did not go off,” said the fire chief.
He further said that the hotel has now been evacuated completely.
Faisal Edhi of the Edhi Foundation said no one from the hotel management was there to guide rescue workers inside the hotel which was dark.
He said the rescue operation was difficult because people were communicating with trapped guests in Urdu, which some foreigners did not understand.
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has ordered the civil defence department to inspect and present a report investigating whether the hotel had the arrangements to extinguish the fire.
