14 dead in Kolkata hotel fire; PM announces ex gratia, CM orders probe

Several people were seen trying to escape through the windows and narrow ledges of the building. Two people sustained injuries while trying to jump from the fourth floor.

Kolkata:  A devastating fire at a hotel in a congested locality in central Kolkata killed 14 people, including a woman and two children, by the time it was brought under control early on Wednesday.

The fire engulfed the hotel at Mechhuapatti in Burrabazar in central Kolkata late in the evening on Tuesday, trapping most of the 88 guests occupying the 42 rooms in the six-storey building as well as the workers of the hotel.

Ten fire tenders were deployed to bring the blaze under control. The firefighters used ladders and ropes to rescue the people trapped inside the hotel. With flames leaping and smoke billowing out of the windows of the hotel, some of the guests and workers jumped from the second and third floors, but not all of them survived.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed anguish over the tragedy and announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh for the family of each deceased person as well as Rs 50000 for each injured. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that the state government too would provide Rs 2 lakh to the family of each deceased and Rs 50,000 to the injured.

Sujit Bose, the state’s minister for fire and emergency services, said that the hotel had defunct fire safety systems, with the alarms and water sprinklers not working. “There was no active fire safety system in place in the hotel. This was a clear case of negligence (by the hotel authorities),” he told journalists. The Kolkata Police constituted a Special Investigation Team to probe the cause of the fire.

The fire safety clearance of the hotel had expired in 2022. The only staircase was also blocked, and, as a result, the evacuation was difficult.

Ranvir Kumar, the Director General of Fire Services, said that an FIR had been registered. The owners of the budget hotel have been absconding since the fire broke out.

“I jumped out through the window of a room on the third floor. There was no other way I could have saved myself,” said Sanjay Das, a worker of the hotel, who was slightly injured. But his colleague Manoj Paswan, who had also jumped out from the same floor, was not lucky. He had died on the scene itself.

Most of the 14 deceased died due to suffocation as they could not escape through the flames and smoke, which turned the rooms of the hotel into gas chambers, fire officials said.

“Anguished by the loss of lives due to a fire mishap in Kolkata. Condolences to those who lost their loved ones. May the injured recover soon,” the prime minister posted on X on Wednesday. “I monitored the rescue and firefight operations throughout the night and mobilised maximum fire brigade services in the area,” Banerjee wrote on the social media platform, adding that combustible materials had been stored in the building and an enquiry had been initiated.