Indian hotel fire toll 44

Press, 24 January 1986, Page 1

Indian hotel fire toll 44

NZPA-Reuter New Delhi At least 44 people were killed, including 25 foreigners, and more than 80 hurt early yesterday in New Delhi’s worst hotel fire.

The five-star 137-room Siddharth Continental was fully occupied with about 180 guests and staff inside when the blare started about 1.30 a.m.

Firemen took 5% hours to control the blase.

The police said that at least 25 of the dead were foreigners. Hospital officials said they included a West German diplomat and his wife, the hotel’s Chinese cook and two children. No identities were immediately available.

Most victims died from carbon monoxide poisoning or shock. Bodies were found up to the top floor of the 10-storey hotel. Other foreign guests in the hotel were believed to be British, Danish, Japanese, Iraqi and Russian.

The basement and first three floors were gutted. Some guests apparently tried to escape by knott- - ing bedsheets together and the sheets could be seen fluttering in open windows at mid-morning. The hotel’s general manager, Mr J. S. Malhotra, said the cause had not been determined and he declined to rule out sabotage. New Delhi’s chief executive, Air Vice-Mar-shal H. L. Kapur, ordered a judicial inquiry into the fire and the capital’s criminal police, atee opened an investigation.Divisional Fire Officer J. C. Sharma told Reuters that the blaze started in a basement banquet room and quickly spread, filling the building with suffocating smoke. - More than 150 firemen battled the leaping flames that threatened to destroy the luxury hotel, in an exclusive south Delhi suburb favoured by diplomats and other foreign, residents.

Mr Shanna said the blaze was the worst hotel fire in Delhi.

Agence France-Presee reported an Australian High Commission spokesman, Peter Saville, as saying: “We have heard that eight Australians were staying in the hotel, but we have no confirmation.” .

Earlier this month the New Delhi city administration cut off the power supply to three hotels after they had failed to satisfy fire officials about fire-fighting arrangements.