LUCKNOW: Four persons were killed and around 10 were left with severe burns in a major fire that broke out at a prominent hotel-- Levana Suites -- in the posh Hazratganj area in state capital Lucknow on Monday morning. The toll is likely to go up, said the authorities concerned.
The owners and the manager of the hotel have been detained, police said.
The owners, Rohit Agarwal and Rahul Agarwal, along with the manager, Sagar Srivastava, have been taken into custody.
The police spokesman said that an FIR was being registered in the case.
A Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) official said that several by-laws had been broken in the construction of the hotel which did not even have an emergency exit.
Chief Minister Yogi ordered a joint probe by Lucknow Divisional Commissioner Roshan Jacob and the Police Commissioner SB Shiradkar to ascertain the cause of inferno.
A forensic unit of the district police and ADG Fire visited the hotel along with the officials of Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) and got it sealed.
As per the Lucknow DM, the hotel owners had not got the map of the hotel approved by the LDA following which orders were issued to authorities concerned to seal the building and get it demolished. Other hotels operating in the state capital have also come under the scanner of district administration and LDA.
As per the hotel management records, 18 -20 of the total 30 rooms of the hotel were occupied at the time of the incident on Monday morning. In the subsequent rescue operations, around 35-40 hotel guests were rescued besides the hotel staff. It took around five hours for the firemen to douse the flames through 25 fire tenders.
As the blaze intensified, small explosions started taking place at regular intervals, spreading panic and anxiety among the nearby residents and also the guests inside the hotel.
The fire led to panic as guests began screaming for help. As per DG Fire Avinash Chandra, the firefighters had to resort to breaking window panes and grills to rescue people as the rooms were filled with thick smoke. Firefighters had a tough time dousing the flames with fire tenders in the absence of fire exit.
Consequently, firefighters used external ladders to access the windows of rooms on 2nd and 3rd floors where people were trapped, he added. The guests were trapped inside their rooms and were brought out of the building through the windows by the hotel staff.
The entire area which had a number of residential complexes in the vicinity came under the cloud of thick smoke billowing from the four-storey hotel forcing the residents of the area to come out of their houses in panic.
Of those injured in the incident, 10 persons were rushed to Shyama Prasad Mookerjie (SPM) hospital in Hazaratganj where two of the injured were declared dead upon arrival, identified as Gurnoor Anand and Sahiba Kaur, both residents of Lucknow.
Police said that bodies of a man and a woman later recovered from room situated on the second floor of the hotel were identified as Amaan Ghazi (35) and Shravika Singh (30) also of Lucknow. Fifteen others were rescued by firemen from the hotel.
“Of the 10 injured persons who were brought at Civil Hospital, one was discharged after first aid while rest of nine are admitted,” said Dr Anand Ojha, Director, SPM hospital.
In the wake of the ferocity of the fire in the densely populated area, the state administration called in a team from the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and State Disaster Management Force (SDMF) were put into service to assist the state police and other agencies for speedy rescue and relief operations.
The fire was so intense that firefighters had to drill holes and openings into the walls using JCBs to throw in water inside the first floor. The senior authorities claimed that prima facie it appeared to be a case of short circuit which led to the incident.
The fire was initially spotted by one Diwakar Tripathi, a resident of Gulmohar apartment, adjacent to the hotel. He alerted the hotel staff and the fire department, said the police.
CM Yogi Adityanath kept a close watch on the rescue operations shortly after the incident was report. He visited the injured in hospitals and directed senior officials to reach the spot and personally supervise rescue operations. CM Yogi also asked the authorities concerned to extend proper and free of cost treatment to the injured. Even Deputy CM Brajesh Pathak, who is also state health minister, remained present at the spot to monitor the rescue operations himself.
Meanwhile, Defence Minister and Lucknow MP Rajnath Singh also took to Twitter to express grief over the loss of lives.
(With inputs from IANS)