Hotel fire in India's Kolkata kills 15

KOLKATA: At least 15 people, including two children, died in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata late on Tuesday when a fire blazed through a six-storey hotel in a congested neighbourhood, authorities said.

The fire was reported around 8:15pm (1445 GMT) and was first detected in a room close to the kitchen on the first floor of the Rituraj Hotel, police sources said.

Flames and smoke soon engulfed the entire building in the central business area of Burrabazar, the sources said, adding that almost all of the 45 rooms in the hotel were occupied and that about 50 people were in the building at the time.

Most dead bodies were found in the staircase of the hotel and asphyxiation was suspected to be the main cause of death, said Sujit Bose, the fire and emergency services minister of West Bengal state, of which Kolkata is the capital.

Eight bodies had been identified so far, Bose said.

"The forensic team is visiting the site today (Wednesday) and an inquiry has been ordered to find out the cause of the fire. It will also look into why the hotel's inbuilt fire fighting system did not work," Bose said.

Many guests of the hotel managed to escape on time but one person jumped from the roof out of fear and died, Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim told reporters.

Five people were rescued from their rooms, around 20 from the roof while some were also rescued from balconies, Kolkata Police Commissioner Manoj Verma told reporters.

Some people took shelter on narrow ledges outside their windows and were rescued by firefighters who reached them through hydraulic ladders, said a local police official, who did not want to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Video from Indian news agency ANI, in which Reuters has a minority stake, showed firefighters using megaphones to address those gathered on the ledges and the roof, requesting them to remain calm and wait for rescuers to reach them.