A devastating fire broke out at around 1:45 am on Wednesday at a dingy five-storey building on Mirza Ghalib Street in central Kolkata that housed several hotels, killing at least nine people, including a four-year-old child, and injuring six others, police said. The building sits in the New Market area, a crowded commercial stretch of the city popular with cross-border visitors, including many Bangladeshi travellers.
Bangladeshi Nationals Among the Dead
Officials said several of the victims were Bangladeshi nationals who had travelled to Kolkata for medical treatment. West Bengal’s Fire Department Minister Kaushik Chowdhury, speaking after visiting the site, said the deceased included both Indian and Bangladeshi nationals and that authorities were still working to establish their identities, describing conditions inside the building as very bad. The Bangladesh Deputy High Commission in Kolkata has been informed and is assisting with identification and coordination for repatriating the bodies.
Guests Trapped by Thick Smoke
Most people inside the building were asleep when the flames broke out on the lower floors. Flames quickly filled the enclosed, poorly ventilated corridors with thick, suffocating smoke, making it extremely difficult for guests on higher floors to escape. A police officer told reporters that the dense smoke made it difficult for firefighters to climb the staircase and reach the upper floors, and that more deaths were feared even after nine were confirmed.
Large Rescue Operation
Five fire tenders were pressed into service, along with police and Disaster Management Department personnel, to carry out the rescue operation. Around 80 people were evacuated from the building in total. Firefighters eventually brought the blaze under control and carried out a cooling operation once the fire was extinguished.
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Investigation Underway
A case has been registered at the New Market police station, with proceedings initiated against the building’s owner, and police have begun raids at the owner’s residence to trace him. Two hotel staff members have also been detained for questioning as investigators work to determine what caused the fire and whether fire safety regulations had been followed.
Second Deadly Hotel Fire in Days
The tragedy comes just two days after another fatal hotel fire in West Bengal. A blaze at Hotel Bideshini near the Tarapith temple in Birbhum district killed eight people on August 17, most of them pilgrims from Meghalaya and Alipurduar, after exit grills on an emergency staircase were found locked, trapping guests inside. The hotel owner in that case was taken into custody. The back-to-back tragedies have renewed scrutiny of fire safety standards at budget hotels across the state, with questions being raised about building compliance, working fire alarms, and emergency exits.
Summary: A fire broke out around 1:45 am at a multi-storey building housing several hotels near Kolkata’s New Market, killing nine people, including Bangladeshi nationals, and injuring several others in dense smoke that trapped guests on upper floors.
