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Around 40 people were rescued from blaze, with many being treated in ICU
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At least 21 people have died, including a number of foreign nationals, in a fire that engulfed a hotel in India’s capital Delhi on Wednesday morning.
Delhi Fire Services said they rushed multiple fire engines to the Flourish Stays hotel in the busy Malviya Nagar neighbourhood of South Delhi after receiving a call about a blaze at around 8.50am local time.
The five-storey building housed a restaurant on the ground floor and operated 25 rooms, which were mostly occupied by the families of patients undergoing treatment at a nearby hospital.
Eyewitnesses at the scene told The Independent some people died after jumping from the windows of upper storeys once the fire had engulfed the ground floor. Some criticised the fire department’s response time, saying fire engines only arrived at least an hour after the blaze began.
“Around 8.30am we heard a loud sound and saw the blaze had completely engulfed the building,” Sarajana, who lives next to the burnt building, told The Independent.
“I saw five or six people, including women holding their children, jump from the above floors. But they could not survive the impact. The fire department and the ambulance took time to arrive. Had they arrived on time, they would have been able to save a lot more lives,” she added.
Police said around 40 people were rescued in total and were being treated by hospitals in the South Delhi area.
As of Wednesday afternoon, some 15 victims were undergoing treatment in the intensive care unit of the nearby Max Hospital in Saket while eight critical patients were on ventilator support, said Sandeep Budhiraja, a spokesperson with Max Healthcare Group.
The cause of the fire is yet to be determined, though police suspect it started in the restaurant. “There was reportedly a restaurant operating on the ground floor of the building … it is most likely that the fire was connected to that restaurant,” local administration official Jitendra Kumar told reporters.
Officials said some victims were foreign nationals who had travelled to Delhi for medical treatment. Malviya Nagar isn’t far from several of the city’s main private hospitals, many of which have streamlined services catering to international patients, and has witnessed a steady rise in small hotels and inns due to increasing demand from patients’ families.
A Bangladeshi national staying at the hotel described how his brother avoided the fire by matter of minutes. Minhajul Hassan, 26, and his brother had been staying at Flourish since last Friday while their mother underwent knee replacement surgery at a private hospital. He was in hospital with his mother at the time of the fire, but his brother was at the hotel and only stepped out about 15 minutes before the fire erupted.
“We were all at the hospital when our travel agent alerted us about the fire,” he said, looking distraught outside the police cordon. “Our passports, papers and about $1,000 for the surgery were all in the room,” he told The Independent. “We are unsure if anything survived.”
Mohammad Shoaib described how he and five other locals stepped forward to help the rescue operation. “We helped the fire department to extract 25 people out of the hotel,” he said.
They reached the scene at around 8.45am when the fire was still burning, and laid mattresses on the road for people in the hotel rooms above to jump to safety.
Mr Shoaib said he and other first responders performed CPR on several unconscious victims before they were taken to hospital. “We are unaware about their current conditions,” he told The Independent.
He and other volunteers were able to enter the building once the fire was extinguished, he said, and went from room to room checking for survivors.
“It was mayhem,” said former local lawmaker Somnath Bharti, describing the scene shortly after the fire broke out. “Locals responded so well and risked their lives. “Out of about 60 people who were inside the hotel, 21 people died.”
Mr Bharti criticised the speed of the emergency response, saying that “they could have saved more people”.
“No one can predict such an incident, but how the government responds is what one has to worry about,” he told The Independent. The fire service has yet to respond to claims that its response time was slow.
The hotel had one entrance for the entire building, which complicated evacuation efforts, according to eyewitnesses. Another bed and breakfast which shared a wall with the hotel was also partly burned.
Delhi police said about 10 police personnel who were the first to enter the building were later admitted to the hospital.
Personnel from the National Disaster Response Force were deployed at the site to assist firefighters and police in the rescue operation.
A First Information Report – an initial chargesheet required to open a criminal case in India – has been filed with the police for culpable homicide, while officials said they were attempting to trace the hotel’s owner Lokesh Bajaj.
Prime minister Narendra Modi offered his condolences to those affected, his office said in a post on X. It said the families of those killed would receive Rs 200,000 (£1,550) each in financial assistance.
Chief minister Rekha Gupta also offered condolences in a post on X. “I pray for the speedy recovery of those injured and for strength & courage to all those affected by this heartbreaking tragedy,” she wrote.
“Delhi government is closely monitoring the situation. All necessary medical assistance & support are being extended to the affected families.
“In this hour of grief Delhi govt stands firmly with the affected families. We remain committed to providing every possible support to those impacted by this tragedy.”
The incident comes a day after 11 people sustained injuries following a suspected LPG cylinder explosion that led to the collapse of a building in north Delhi’s Mukundpur area on Tuesday.
Six people died over the weekend in a building collapse in the capital’s Saket area.
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