Kolkata, Aug 19 (IANS) The nine people, including two women and a child, killed in the fire incident at a hotel on Mirza Ghalib Street in Central Kolkata early Wednesday morning, died of suffocation rather than burn injuries, initial findings by the police and the West Bengal Fire Services Department have revealed.
“When the nine bodies were brought out of the hotel building premises, there were not many burn injuries on their bodies. In fact, as told to us by other residents of the hotel, who have been safely evacuated, the intensity of the fire within the building was not high. But the entire complex was covered in thick black smoke, thereby causing severe breathing problems. There comes the question of severe lapses in the ventilation facilities,” said a state fire services department official present at the spot.
In addition, the entry and exit spaces in the building were extremely narrow. “With the entire hotel building premises being covered with thick and black smoke, the residents already suffering from breathing problems were even more confused about which path they would approach to come out of the hotel building,” said the state fire services department official.
In fact, a Kolkata Police officer said it was presumed initially that the fire had broken out in one hotel. However, it was later revealed that the same building houses more than one hotel and each entity had the minimum fire safety facilities.
“Each floor of the building housed a hotel or a guest house, with extremely small rooms and narrow passages. The fire first broke out in a hotel on the third floor of that building. The intensity of the fire was not high. But the smoke gradually increased. The entire hotel building was covered in smoke. The residents could not figure out which way to get out,” confirmed a city police officer.
The local people said that the Mirza Ghalib Street area has a number of cheap hotels, accommodating people coming as tourists from other states and even other countries. “A major section of those staying in these hotels are from neighbouring Bangladesh coming to Kolkata for medical tourism. So, Bangladeshis may be among those nine persons who have been killed in the fire,” said a local medicine shop owner.
The local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, Santosh Pathak, said that most of the hotels in the area have mushroomed illegally for a long time, first during the Left Front regime and subsequently during the previous Trinamool Congress regime.
“In this particular building, pillars were compromised to increase the number of rooms. This not only weakened the structure of the buildings but also made the passageways extremely narrow. These were originally residential buildings. Later, they were illegally converted into commercial buildings,” Pathak alleged
–IANS
src/dpb