KARACHI: Twelve people, including five doctors, were killed and over 80 others injured in a fire that broke out in the Regent Plaza Hotel located on the arterial Sharea Faisal on Monday, police and rescuers said.

Of the 12 people, only one suffered burn injuries while the remaining died due to suffocation.

Officials said that the fire broke out at 3am in the hotel kitchen located on the ground floor.

It appeared that proper safety measures could not be taken as the central air-conditioning system was not promptly shut down. As a result, the air-conditioning ducts spread the smoke to almost every floor and room of the hotel, where 600 guests were present at the time of the incident.

SSP-South Saqib Ismail said that rescue efforts were hampered because electric current was flowing through the hotel’s ground floor.

A fire-fighting operation was launched and teams of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, Navy, Karachi Port Trust, etc, managed to put out the fire in over three hours.

Police to lodge FIR if criminal negligence found

Panicked men, women and children were seen behind glass windows of their respective rooms. Some managed to break the glasses and jumped out, while others used the bedspread to climb down from windows. Two snorkels also took part in the rescue operation.

Many people, including children, were sleeping in their rooms and other hotel guests, staff and rescue workers woke them up and managed to bring them to safety.

“Most people die on the fourth, sixth and seventh floor of the hotel due to suffocation,” said KMC’s Chief Fire Officer Tahseen Siddiqi. “The air-conditioning system was not shut down by the hotel management and the smoke engulfed the building up to its seventh floor through air ducts.”

He said that the exact cause of the fire could not be ascertained till late in the night.

“Eleven people — seven men and four women — were brought dead in the morning,” said Dr Seemin Jamali, the executive director of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre. “The body of another victim was brought here in the evening. He was found dead in a hotel washroom.”

She said that 80 other injured were also shifted to the hospital, which is a stone throw’s from the hotel. Three of them were Chinese who suffered injuries after they jumped out of the building to escape fire.

Five of the dead were doctors who came here from different parts of Sindh and Balochistan to attend a meeting on expanded programme for immunisation.

A couple, who had come here from Punjab to attend a wedding, also died.

Additional Police Surgeon Dr Kaleem Shaikh told Dawn that only one person, a man who worked in a carpet shop located on the ground floor of the hotel, died of 100 per cent burn wounds.

The condition of a brother of one of the dead doctors, Engineer Abdul Razzak, who came here from England, was said to be critical, said SSP Memon.

The SSP said that an inquiry was launched to ascertain whether the hotel’s fire alarm system and fire extinguishers exist and functional and whether there were emergency fire exits. “We have started our investigations and a case would be registered against the hotel management if criminal negligence found.”

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah ordered the authorities to inspect safety measures in all hotels and factories.

Meanwhile, the hotel management claimed in a statement that the hotel manager immediately informed the fire brigade but ill-equipped fire tenders arrived one hour late.

The statement said that a fire alarm system existed in the hotel as per the law and there were three emergency exit points on each floor and information about such exits was available in the hotel.

However, the chief fire chief Siddiqi told the media that the fire exits were not marked and the smoke detectors were not functioning.

Published in Dawn December 6th, 2016