Kolkata, April 30 Amid the devastating fire in a six-storey hotel building at Madan Mohan Burman Street in central Kolkata on Wednesday morning that claimed 14 lives, questions have surfaced over the total lack of fire safety arrangements there.
The hotel owner has reportedly gone missing since the fire broke out on Tuesday night, and the hotel staff are also unaware of his whereabouts.
A preliminary investigation revealed three major lapses in ensuring property safety measures on the part of the hotel authorities, namely a lack of adequate internal fire extinguishing arrangements, inadequate ventilation facilities, and a lack of alternative entry and exit options.
“The lack of adequate ventilation facilities is evident from the fact that of the 14 killed in the fire, 13 died not because of getting charred but because of suffocation from the smoke emitted from the fire. The 14th person was first killed as he jumped off in panic,” said a state fire services department official present at the spot.
Secondly, as complained by those who were in the hotel as guests and all those working there, there was just a single entry-cum-exit point of the hotel, which is highly unacceptable for a multi-storey hotel. “Had there been multiple or at least one more exit point, probably some more people could have been saved,” said a local person.
At the same time, the state fire services department official, the hotel lacked adequate internal fire extinguishing arrangements, including reserved water for use in an emergency.
“The pipeline is there. But there was not adequate water at the reservoir. Had there been so, at least the insiders could have started the initial fire-fighting process using that reserved water before the fire tenders arrived,” the official said.
The state fire services minister, Sujit Bose, who rushed to the spot on Wednesday morning, admitted these lapses. “The hotel authorities had too many lapses. No system was available for the initial handling of such emergencies. The entire building had glass walls with minimum ventilation and smoke-exhaust arrangements. In many cases, the firefighters had to break the glass to reach the base of the fire. All necessary actions as per legal provisions will be taken against the hotel authorities,” Bose said.
Chief Minister Banerjee is currently at Digha in East Midnapore district, along with almost her entire cabinet, for the inauguration of the Lord Jagannath Temple modelled after the iconic Shree Jagannath Dham temple at Puri in Odisha.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh from PMNRF to the next of kin of each deceased, and Rs 50,000 for each of those injured.
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