KARACHI (SW): At least 11 people have been confirmed dead after a fire broke out in a four-star hotel in Pakistan's largest city Karachi on Monday.
The fire reportedly broke out at the kitchen located in the ground floor and engulfed the whole building. More than 70 people, including a number of foreigners are among injured.
There were around 100 guests in the hotel at the time when the fire broke out at around 3:00AM in the kitchen located in the basement of the hotel. It took three fire tenders some four hours to control the fire. Despite being one of the modern and busy hotels, the hotel had no emergency exit, and according to the guests the fire alarms also did not work.
Security manager of this private hotel also died while trying to rescue the guests. Most of the casualties occurred due to suffocation. Among the dead also included four doctors. A number of foreign guests faced additional troubles while escaping the fire as many signboards inside the hotel were written in the local Urdu language. Guests inside the hotel, desperate to escape the blaze, jumped from windows and scrambled down knotted bed sheets and curtains to leave the building.
According to the Chief Fire Officer Tehseen Siddiqui the blaze was not very intense and was contained in time but the smoke kept circulating inside because the air conditioning system stayed on, which caused deaths due to suffocation.
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