By IANS
New Delhi : Nearly 500 guests and staff ran for the their lives as dark columns of smoke clouds engulfed a six-storey swanky hotel here Saturday. Some 50 fire tenders battled for two hours to control the fire.
“It was a major fire. Luckily no guest was injured,” Delhi Fire Service chief R.C. Sharma told IANS outside The Grand, as around 100 fire fighters sprayed jets of water into the basement kitchen, where the blaze erupted, and a Japanese restaurant a level above.
Although the fire was confined to a limited area, the smoke quickly filled all floors of the 390-room hotel, sparking panic.
Two fire service officials suffered minor injuries during the operation, which was not without some anxious moments when the pressure in the hotel’s sprinklers reduced after a pipe burst.
The guests, including a large number of foreigners, complained that there was neither a fire alarm not did the hotel administration bother to warn them about the massive fire.
Even fire chief Sharma was livid.
“The hotel should have called us earlier since the fire broke out at 12.30 p.m. We were informed at least 20 minutes later,” he said, adding the fire-fighting arrangements in the hotel were not up to the mark.
With guests complaining of no guidance and help from the hotel, many of them along with employees ran in different directions in a desperate bid to find the nearest exit as smoke began to fill up rooms and lobbies.
Many streamed out with what little they could carry. Many apparently left behind their passports, cash, credit cards, air tickets and clothes in their rooms.
“I was standing close to Enoki, the Japanese restaurant, when I noticed smoke. The staff first asked me move away. But in five minutes they asked me to run,” said Conchi Jesti from the US.
“I rushed to my room and could only manage to pick my expensive laptop,” Jesti told IANS.
“Look at us. We are still in our spa clothes,” complained Keshni Decacon, a South African who was at the Jacuzzi with her mother when disaster struck.
“We only came to know about the fire when an attendant started switching off the lights and ordered us to immediately vacate the hotel. We had no chance to even change clothes.
“Our passport, money and clothes are in the hotel. The hotel says that our stuff is safe and we don’t have to worry. But I have already missed my flight to Chennai.”
According to a guest from Israel, who had been staying in the hotel for the past three weeks, several guests were unaware of the fire for a long time.
“I was sleeping in my second floor room and was caught unawares. I woke up only after the entire room was filled with smoke and felt suffocated,” he said.
“There was no fire alarm, no smoke detector. When I came out of my room, I was struggling to locate the emergency doors. The exit signs did not light up. I just followed other people.”
Hotel authorities said the fire broke out in the basement kitchen of Enoki restaurant.
The fire quickly engulfed the restaurant because of the heavy woodwork, and in no time smoke was billowing out of the building. The cause of the fire could not be confirmed. Some alleged that a cooking gas cylinder had burst.
General Manager Ray McShane insisted that it was because of the hotel’s swift action that no one was injured.
“All the guests and employees were immediately rescued and taken to safety,” he said. “The guests are being relocated to Shangri-La and Hyatt Regency hotels.”
The Grand hotel, he added, had been sealed indefinitely.