Kolkata/Bhubaneswar: Four persons from Odisha are among the 14 killed in the devastating fire at a hotel in central Kolkata on Tuesday night.
They have been identified as Dushmanta Kumar Nayak (46), Dushmanta Kumar Swain (46), and Manoj Kumar Patra (45), all from Jagatsinghpur district, and businessman Rajesh Santuka from the CDA area in Cuttack City
The Jagatsinghpur natives were working with a Bhubaneswar-based private finance company and had gone to Kolkata on official work. Families of the deceased have been notified, and arrangements are being made to bring the bodies back to Odisha for the last rites, sources said.
The blaze engulfed the six-storey hotel Burrabazar’s Mechhuapatty, turning it into a gas chamber with no outlet for the thick smoke, at around 8.15 pm. Most of the victims died from suffocation, while one fell from a cornice while trying to escape and died on the spot.
There were 88 guests in the 42 rooms of the hotel, according to reports.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs 2 lakh each for the bereaved families, and Rs 50,000 each for the injured.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also announced Rs 2 lakh assistance from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF) for each of the next of kin of the deceased and Rs 50,000 for those injured.
