Kolkata hotel fire: Survivors recount harrowing experience

At least nine people have died in a devastating fire at a residential hotel on Mirza Ghalib Street in Kolkata's New Market area. Among them, five are Bangladeshi nationals. However, three Bangladeshis managed to escape the blaze that broke out late on Tuesday night.

Recalling the horrific experience, Ashraful, a resident of Gazipur, said, "After the fire broke out, we couldn't go down. Somehow, through the smoke, everyone on that floor went up to the roof. There were about 20-25 of us. We all moved near the water tank. We couldn't figure out which direction the fire might come from. But we decided that if we saw flames, we would try to put out the fire using water from the tank."

Ashraful had been staying at a hotel on the fourth floor of the building since Saturday for business purposes.

Mohammad Nazmul Sarkar, a resident of Dhaka, was also staying at the same hotel. He said at one point he thought he would not survive. The smoke had engulfed everything around, making it difficult to breathe, and he felt a shortage of oxygen.

Nazmul said, "The hotel staff kept telling us to go up. But the staircase was so narrow that only one person could go at a time. It was an iron staircase. I couldn't figure out where to escape. There was no way to go down. Everything was covered in smoke. I couldn't see anything even an arm's length away. As soon as the door opened, smoke rushed in. Everything went dark. I somehow went up using my mobile phone's torchlight."

Nazmul had gone to Kolkata for heart treatment.

Another Bangladeshi, Kausar Hossain, was staying with his family on the ground floor of the same building in another hotel. Kausar said they did not realise the fire had broken out at first. Hotel staff knocked on their door while they were asleep and woke them up. They quickly got out of the hotel. However, after coming out, they remembered they had left their passports inside. He then went back inside to retrieve them.

The Foreign Ministry has confirmed the deaths of five Bangladeshis in the incident. The Bangladesh Deputy High Commission in Kolkata said four of the deceased are from Kushtia and one from Dhaka. They are Debashish Dutta, Afsana Shimmin, Sharnashish Dutta and Md Akram Ali from Kushtia, and Ahmed Babu from Savar, Dhaka.