Blaze turns Kolkata hotel into death trap; guests jump, scream as flames engulf building

The fire was spotted around 7:30- 8 PM on Tuesday in the crowded Burrabazar neighbourhood, quickly engulfing the six-storey budget hotel with 88 occupants in 42 rooms.

Kolkata: The faint smell of something burning was the only warning before chaos broke out in a narrow lane in Kolkata's Burrabazar area Tuesday evening, when a raging fire turned a six-storey low-budget hotel into a furnace of smoke, panic and death.

By Wednesday dawn, the air in Mechhuapatti still reeked of soot and grief.

The charred remains of suitcases and slippers littered the blackened corridors of the now-sealed hotel, as forensic teams began sifting through the ashes.

A devastating fire ripped through a budget hotel in central Kolkata's bustling Mechhuapatti area, turning a six-storey building into a death trap and killing 14 people, including two children, as panicked guests screamed for help, choked on thick smoke, and some jumped from upper floors in a desperate bid to survive.

Their desperate screams echoed down the alley as the fire tore through the cramped building, where 88 people were packed into 42 modest rooms.

"I saw a little boy shouting for his mother from the third-floor window," said a shopkeeper from across the lane. "The smoke swallowed him before anyone could do anything."

The fire began around 8 pm on Tuesday, reportedly on the second floor.

Within minutes, smoke billowed through the stairwells and hallways, plunging the hotel into darkness and dread.

"I was about to eat dinner when the lights went out. Then I heard screams," said a fruit vendor who lives nearby.

"People were banging on windows, some were throwing clothes out. Then I saw one man jump. He hit the ground hard and didn't get up."

Firefighters arrived with 10 engines, ladders and ropes, but the flames had already moved fast.

Narrow lanes hampered rescue operations, and the old structure turned into what one official called a "gas chamber."

"We had to break windows to let the smoke out before we could go in," said an officer of the fire department. "By the time we reached the upper floors, many had already collapsed."

A garment trader from Murshidabad who survived the ordeal, said he woke up to thick smoke under his door.

"I wrapped a towel around my face and crawled. The corridor was pitch black. People were stumbling, crying. I could hear someone praying," he said.

"I knocked on my neighbour's door, no answer. I don't think he made it."

Rescuers worked through the night, finally bringing the fire under control around 3 am.

Still, they kept pulling bodies from rooms and stairwells, many of them from the upper floors where guests tried to escape upwards, only to find themselves trapped.

"They thought the rooftop might be safer," said local resident Jitu Poddar, who helped ferry the injured to waiting ambulances. "But the smoke got them first."

Officials confirmed that of the 14 dead, 11 were men, one was a woman, and two were children. Thirteen others were hospitalised with severe burns and smoke inhalation, several in critical condition.

A Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been formed to determine the cause.

Preliminary suspicion points to a short circuit, but questions loom large about the hotel's safety compliance.

"Whether the fire alarm or extinguishers were working, we are looking into everything," said a senior police officer at the scene.

By Wednesday morning, grieving families began arriving, some from neighbouring states, to identify the dead.

Many of the victims were migrant workers or traders staying temporarily in the bustling wholesale hub.

As the flames died out, so did the lives and dreams of 14 people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.