Death toll in Kolkata hotel blaze rises to 15, minister admits severe lapses in fire safety measures

Kolkata: As the death toll in the devastating fire at a six-story hotel building at Madan Mohan Burman Street in central Kolkata has reached 15, a senior official of the West Bengal government and a member of the state cabinet admitted severe lapses in fire safety management at the construction.

The director general of the state fire services department, Ranveer Kumar, who reached the spot on Wednesday, said that the fire licence of the hotel had expired three years back, and the hotel authorities did not bother to renew it.

The fire broke out at the hotel on Tuesday night.

State’s Fire Minister Sujit Bose admitted that the fire alarm installed at the hotel was not functional.

At the same time, he admitted that the fire-extinguishing equipment at the hotel did not function at the crucial moment.

Meanwhile, initial findings by the investigation team have revealed other major lapses in ensuring proper emergency evacuation arrangements and ventilation facilities at the hotel, as a result of which the majority of those killed in the fire died not because of getting charred but because of suffocation caused by the smoke emitting out of the fire.

As per the latest information available, 13 of the victims died of smoke-related suffocation, while one died after he jumped off the floor out of panic. The cause of the 15th person is yet to be ascertained. Most of those killed in the fire came to Kolkata from outside, with some of them hailing from Tamil Nadu.

“The hotel had just one entry and exit point. The door of the emergency exit was blocked with construction items that were being used for expansion and renovation work within the structure. Had the emergency exit been functional, the number of casualties could have been less,” said an officer from the state fire services department.

At the same time, the entire hotel had a glass cover without adequate ventilation facilities that disallowed the exhaust of smoke, resulting in so many deaths due to suffocation.

Already, the police have registered an FIR against the hotel authorities. Both the owners of the hotel have been missing since Tuesday night. The state government has already formed a special investigation team to probe the matter.

The local people alleged that despite several complaints of illegal constructions in the hotel raised in the past, neither the Kolkata Municipal Corporation nor the local police took any action to prevent the untoward incident.

IANS