Tarapith: At least seven people were killed and several others critically injured after a major fire broke out at a hotel at Tarapith in the Birbhum district of West Bengal.
The incident occurred early on Monday morning when most of the guests at the hotel were asleep.
Tarapith is a famous pilgrimage spot associated with Goddess Maa Tara. A large number of pilgrims had reached the town for prayers on the last Monday of the holy month of Shravan. Some of them had put up at the hotel where the disaster occurred.
The fire erupted around 4.30 am on the ground floor of the four-storey hotel, when most of the guests were asleep, the police said, as reported by PTI.
The blaze was brought under control by fire tenders that reached the spot soon. The injured were brought out and rushed to the Rampurhat Government Medical College and Hospital.
Some of the injured suffered burn injuries, while others fell ill due to asphyxiation. Hospital sources initially said that five people had died in the blaze. The police, however, revised the toll to seven later.
The hotel management claimed that the fire was caused by a short circuit. The blaze apparently started near the reception of the hotel after an electrical component of the power supply system caught fire. However, the exact cause is yet to be established.
The fire spread rapidly through decorative and fibre materials inside the hotel. Smoke billowed to the upper floors and trapped several guests in their rooms.
“Suddenly, the entire hotel was engulfed in smoke. We could not breathe, and it was hard to find an escape route,” a woman from Kolkata, who managed to escape unhurt, said.
Another guest said he was trapped in his room with his wife and two children for nearly 45 minutes. “We could not come out of the door because of the blaze. Since the room had no window, we escaped through an opening near the bathroom ceiling,” he said.